Co-Director
Co-Director
Faculty Fellow
Faculty Fellow
Faculty Fellow
Faculty Fellow
Faculty Fellow
Post-Doctoral Fellow
Prof. Amy H Liu (PhD Emory University; BA Smith College) is an associate professor in the Government Department and codirector of the PRE Lab. Her research and teaching focus on the intersection of ethnic politics, language politics, and migration politics.
Prof. Liu’s first book Standardizing Diversity: The Political Economy of Language Regimes examines how the recognition of lingua francas can be conducive for economic growth—in Asia generally and in Southeast Asia specifically.
The second book The Language of Political Incorporation: Chinese Migrants in Europe looks at the linguistic networks of Chinese migrants and the implications for engagement with local authorities in Europe. She also has a Cambridge Elements monograph (coauthored with Jacob Ricks) explaining the treatment of ethnic minorities in Southeast Asia.
She has a forthcoming Cambridge Elements monograph (coauthored with Jacob Ricks) explaining the treatment of ethnic minorities in Southeast Asia.
Prof. Liu is currently working on a new book project examining the diversity and representation of government cabinets. Her other works have appeared in journals such as British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, Journal of Politics, Political Research Quarterly, and World Politics.
Prof. Eric L. McDaniel (PhD University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; BA Wilberforce University) is an associate professor in the Government Department and codirector of the PRE Lab.
Prof. McDaniel is the author of Politics in the Pews: The Political Mobilization of Black Churches, which examines why some Black churches choose to engage the political world while others do not. He has also explored how the various messages and beliefs in the Black religious experience influence Black political behavior. He is currently engaged in a co-authored project that examines how the intermingling of religious and national identity influences how citizens come to understand their nation and it its place in the world.
Finally, Prof. McDaniel is interested in the role of social policy in shaping the outcomes of marginalized groups. Focusing specifically on health policy he has begun a research agenda that examines public support for medical outreach for marginalized groups and how Black political power can generate better health outcomes for Blacks.
Prof. Roberto F. Carlos (PhD University of Chicago; MA University of Texas at San Antonio; BA Texas State University) is an assistant professor of Government at the University of Texas at Austin. His research agenda focuses on the Latinx immigrant experience broadly. He is currently focusing on how Latinx immigrants and their children incorporate politically and how political institutions and the American public react to their attempts to create a place for themselves in the United States.
In his book project, Prof. Carlos explores how Latinx migrants to the United States and their offspring develop their political outlooks to become active civic and political participants. He argues that the current understanding of the parent-to-child formation of political identities is woefully inadequate to explain the political dynamics of the United States’ largest minority group. Instead, he asserts that we need to rethink how political identities form in the U.S. and what that means for Latinx political equality and social inclusion.
Prof. Carlos work on these topics has appeared in the American Political Science Review, the Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics, the Justice System Journal, and the Journal of Legislative Studies.
Dr. Danielle Pilar Clealand (PhD University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; MY New York University; BA Tufts University) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mexican American and Latino Studies and holds a secondary appointment in the Department of African and African Diaspora Studies. Her research examines comparative racial politics, group consciousness, black public opinion and racial inequality with a focus on the Spanish-speaking Caribbean and the United States using an interdisciplinary approach with mixed methods.
Dr. Clealand’s book, The Power of Race in Cuba: Racial Ideology and Black Consciousness during the Revolution, examines racial ideology and the institutional mechanisms that support racial inequality in Cuba. The book outlines structural racism the island and the experiences of discrimination that create a foundation for black solidarity. The Power of Race in Cuba won both the Best Book Award from the Race, Ethnicity and Politics section of the American Political Science Association and the W.E.B. Du Bois Distinguished Book Award from the National Conference of Black Political Scientists.
Dr. Sergio Garcia-Rios’ research centers around the idea that immigrants develop portfolios of identities which are fluid, situational, and are used instrumentally. He also examines voter turnout, political participation, and public opinion, especially among Latino immigrants. Other academic interests include issues related to Latinos and the Voting Rights Act, border issues and border research, and the politics of Mexico.
Dr. Garcia-Rios teaches classes on immigration, race and ethnicity, Latino politics, and social science methodology. He was born and raised in Durango, Mexico but considers El Paso, TX his second home, a fronterizo by choice.
Dr. Angela X. Ocampo (PhD University of California, Los Angeles, BA Brown University) is Assistant Professor of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. She specializes in the study of race and ethnicity in the U.S., with a specific focus on the Latina/o/x community. Her research agenda examines the political incorporation of racial, ethnic, and religious minorities both as every-day participants and as political leaders in American institutions. Specifically, she investigates how political parties and institutional forces shape the path of minorities into elected office as well as the factors that mobilize ethnoracial minorities to engage politically.
Professor Ocampo’s book project Truly home?: The Politics of Belonging and Latino Political Incorporation, which received the American Political Science Association’s Best Dissertation Award in Race, Ethnicity and Politics, examines the notion of perceived belonging to U.S. society and its influence on political interest and political engagement among Latinxs. Her research has been published in Political Research Quarterly, Social Science Research, Politics, Groups and Identities, The Forum, and Latino Studies.
Dr. Hannah Walker (PhD University of Washington, BA Washington State University) is an assistant professor of Government at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research examines the impact of the criminal justice system on American democracy with special attention to minority and immigrant communities.
Her book, Mobilized by Injustice, explores the impact of experiences with the criminal justice system on political engagement, with particular interest in the conditions under which people decide to contest punitive policies in the United States. Current research builds on the book to take an in-depth look at the intersections of immigration and criminal justice, and the means by which Latinx communities are specifically targeted by these policies. A series of field experiments evaluates best strategies for mobilizing people with felony convictions to register and vote. A final suite of projects examines the politics of policing and possibilities for harm-reductive reforms.
Dr. Angela Gutierrez (PhD University of California – Los Angeles; MA California State University – Northridge; BA University of Southern California) a Provost’s Early Career Postdoctoral Fellow in the Mexican American and Latina/o Studies Department and the PRE Lab. Her research focuses on Latino identity and political participation in the United States. Her dissertation focuses on the activation of Latino identity in the United States.
Guitierrez argues that political threat may be one way in which an identity can become salient and politicized. The first section of her dissertation examines identity in California during the 1990s as an example of how identity can become politicized due to the political climate. The second section of her dissertation examines three common identity measures in the political science literature; group consciousness, identity centrality, and linked fate and seeks to answer how these measures relate to the political attitudes and behavior of Latino voters, and examines if threat mediates or moderates the relationship between identity and political participation.
Her work has been published in Journal of Applied Research in Contemporary Politics and Political Research Quarterly.
Dr. Jangai Jap (PhD George Washington University; BA Yale University) is a Provost’s Early Career Postdoctoral Fellow in the Government Department and the PRE Lab.
Dr. Jap’s research focuses on ethnic politics and minority representation; state-building and street-level bureaucracy; and Burma/Myanmar politics. Her dissertation supported by the NSF – examines how and why politically non-dominant ethnic groups develop attachment to the state. She provides a micro-level explanation, emphasizing ordinary citizens’ everyday encounters as an important driver of minority – state relations. She evaluates this theory based on interview data and survey and experimental data collected over 13 months of fieldwork in Myanmar. Her work has been published in Electoral Studies.
Dr. Marcel Roman (PhD University of California-Los Angeles; BA University of Kentucky) is a Provost’s Early Career Postdoctoral Fellow in the Government Department and the PRE Lab.
Roman’s research focuses on immigration politics, political behavior, and Latinx politics. His dissertation examines how an increasingly restrictive immigration enforcement environment over the past 30 years motivates and maintains progressive political commitments among Latinx communities despite countervailing conservative forces. His work has been published in Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics, Political Research Quarterly, and UCLA Law Review.
Keith Padraic Chew (BA, MA University of Texas at Austin) is a PhD Candidate in the Government department and the PRE Lab Manager. He studies gender and ethnic politics in Asia.
Chew’s dissertation examines the processes of intersectional representation in legislatures and their effects.
