Arica Schuett, co-chair, is a Ph.D. candidate studying American politics in the political science department at Emory University. Her research focuses on the intersection of political attitudes, race, and data science. Her research forefronts Black political agency through analyses of recent Black voting trends, a conceptualization of local mobilization tactics in 2020, and research into the role of gentrification on the development of political attitudes and electoral participation with a focus on Black residents. Arica’s work is currently featured in the journals Urban Studies and PS: Political Science & Politics. She has received generous financial support from APSA for methodological and subfield training at the Institute for Civically Engaged Research and the APSA Dissertation Workshop on Black Politics. She was recently appointed to serve on APSA’s Committee on the Status of Graduate Students in the Profession for 2024-26.
Zachary Lorico Hertz, co-chair, is a Ph.D. student in the Charles and Louise Travers Department of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. In his research, he uses causal inference methods and survey data to study the effects an increasingly diverse and partisan electorate will have on representation and sub-national institutions. His writing has been featured in academic and popular outlets, including the Washington Post. You can find out more about Zach at zacharylhertz.github.io.
José Pérez an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M University-San Antonio, and I hold a Ph.D. and M.A. in Political Science from The Ohio State University. My research centers on migration and refugee politics, security studies, and global health politics, with a regional focus on Latin America. My research publications include peer-reviewed journal articles in Security Studies, Security Dialogue, International Feminist Journal of Politics, and Latin American Perspectives.
India S. Lenear is a fifth-year ABD Doctoral Candidate in the Department of Political Science at Rutgers University. India’s work broadly studies Women and politics, Black Politics, and American Politics. Her work focuses on Black Women’s politics, Body politics, and Black feminism(s)/Womanism. Her research examines Black women’s political behavior, ideology, and participation through Black feminist theoretical lenses. Her dissertation examines Black women’s ideological self-identification, beliefs, and attitudes through mixed methods and its effect within formal and informal political spheres. India is a member of the American Political Science Association’s Committee on the Status of Graduate Students as of Fall 2024. She is a proud alumna of North Carolina Central University, graduating magna cum laude in 2018. India’s preferred pronouns are she/her/hers.
Solbi Kim is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of International Affairs at the University of Georgia. Her research focuses on political behavior, public opinion, and democratic representation in comparative politics. Through her work on political trust, she examines how trust shapes voting behavior and contributes to party polarization, raising broader questions about representation in democracy. Solbi’s recent projects expand her research on political trust, polarization, media influences, and electoral behavior in democracies by examining young men’s growing support for a conservative party in South Korea and analyzing shifts in public opinion through large-scale YouTube content and comment analysis, particularly in the context of crises. Her work has been previously recognized through her selection to the Summer School in International Survey Methods at Vanderbilt University and funding support from the Institute for Humane Studies (IHS) at George Mason University. She was recently appointed to serve on APSA’s Committee on the Status of Graduate Students in the Profession as of the 2025 Fall. She holds a bachelor’s and master’s in political science and international relations from Ewha Womans University in Seoul, South Korea.
Erika Arias is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at Syracuse University, where she has earned Program Certificates in Conflict and Collaboration, and Latin America and the Caribbean. Her work focuses on social movements, memory, and state violence in Latin America. She has conducted comparative fieldwork in Mexico, Chile, Peru, and Argentina. Erika’s research has been supported by several grants including the APSA Fund for Latino Scholarship, Syracuse University’s Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflict and Collaboration Mini-Grant, and Syracuse University’s Program on Latin America and the Caribbean Research Grant. She holds an M.A. in Political Science from Syracuse University and a B.A. in International Studies, and Law, Societies and Justice from the University of Washington.