Current PhD Students

We are proud of our graduate students at Stony Brook. For a list of students on the job market, please check our Hire a Stony Brook PhD page.

Daniella Alva

Daniella's research focuses on American politics, political economy, and political behavior. In particular, she studies income inequality and redistribution and how our experiences, along with motivations like compassion and fairness, influence our decisions about redistribution.

daniella.alva@stonybrook.edu

Harry Applestein

Harry's research focuses on the personality traits of legislators and how voters perceive and incorporate these traits into their political behavior.

harry.applestein@stonybrook.edu

Brandon Bennes

Brandon's research interests include behavioral political economy, the effects of heterogeneity on climate change negotiations, and incentivized experimental methods with a focus on public goods and collective risk social dilemmas.

brandon.bennes@stonybrook.edu

Claire Christensen

Claire's research interests fall mostly within American politics including electoral politics, partisan polarization, policy outcomes. In particular she focuses on understanding the effects of extremism and conspiratorial politics.

claire.christensen@stonybrook.edu

Justin Dollman

Justin's researching state-level immigration policy, the urban-rural ideological divide across countries, and political metacognition.

justin.dollman@stonybrook.edu

Romeo Gray

Romeo's interests include the psychology of intergroup relations and the influence of elites on public opinion, and he is currently investigating the role that political threats play in the degradation of support for political norms and institutions.

romeo.gray@stonybrook.edu

Cheryl Hege

Cheryl’s research interests lie in the realm of Political Psychology, with a focus on group behavior, conspiratorial beliefs, and right-wing extremism. Her research centers on the impact of the Great Replacement Theory (GRT) on American society and politics, building upon her Master's-level work in this field.

cheryl.hege@stonybrook.edu

Diego Hernandez

Diego’s research interests fall within political psychology. He is particularly interested in the political behaviors of groups, support for right-wing populism globally, and applying political psychological perspectives to the study of conspiratorial belief.

diego.hernandez@stonybrook.edu

Nicole Huffman

Nicole's research interests are in group identities, representation, legislative behavior, and media. Their work focuses on how race and gender impact legislative behavior and communication as well as citizen's reception of that behavior and rhetoric.

nicole.huffman@stonybrook.edu

Srivardhan Jangili

Srivardhan's research interests are generally in the field of Political Psychology, focusing on political communication on social media and affective polarization.

srivardhan.jangili@stonybrook.edu

Shawn Kim

Shawn's research intrests include political behavior, race, ethnicity and politics and partisanship in American politics. His current research is focused on how pan-ethnic cohesion and political preferences among Asian Americans are shaped given heterogeneity among diverse subgroups.

suhwan.kim.1@stonybrook.edu

Olga Khvostunova

Olga's research interests are broadly in the fields of political psychology, comparative politics, and political communication.

olga.khvostunova@stonybrook.edu

Jacob Martin

Jacob's research interests include political behavior and political psychology in the United States, focusing on political identities and political communication.

Jacob.Allen.Martin@stonybrook.edu

Maggie Martin (McDonnell)

Maggie studies political psychology and political behavior, with a focus on gender identity. Research interests include evaluating measures of gender identity in political science and the role that gender has on partisan preferences.

maggie.mcdonnell@stonybrook.edu

Veronica Oelerich

Veronica's research interests broadly fall under political psychology, behavioral political economy, and American politics, with particular interest in collective action.

veronica.oelerich@stonybrook.edu

Adam Panish

Adam's research focuses on how individual differences in emotion and cognition influence public opinion. His dissertation explores how dispositional anxiety shapes attitudes toward social welfare policy and redistribution.

adam.panish@stonybrook.edu

Morgan Pettit

Morgan's research interests fall primarily within the fields of Political Psychology and American Politics. Specifically, her interests are centered on issues of ideology, democratic institutions, and authoritarianism.

morgan.pettit@stonybrook.edu

Joseph Sandor

Joseph studies the effect of political misinformation on political behavior, emphasizing the role of political polarization in fostering the belief and spread of political misinformation.

Joseph.Sandor@stonybrook.edu

Vitória Sgorlon

Vitória's research interests include public opinion, voting behavior, and political communication. Her geographical focus is in Latin America and the United States.

vitoria.sgorlonoliveira@stonybrook.edu

Joshua Shumate

Joshua's research interests consist of American politics, political psychology, and elections.

Joshua.Shumate@stonybrook.edu

Ignacio Urbina

Ignacio's research interests are in comparative political behavior, behavioral political economy, and methods. He focuses on the politics of AI, exploring citizens' attitudes about AI and the impact of human-computer interactions on cooperation and political beliefs. He also studies democratic attitudes in Latin America and the effects of state violence on politics.

ignacio.urbina@stonybrook.edu

Asha Venugopalan

Asha’s research interests include the political psychology of intergroup relations, survey methodology and political behaviour. Her current research explores the intersection of partisan and gender identities and stereotypes in evaluating candidates for federal elections.

asha.venugopalan@stonybrook.edu

Abigail Woodfield

Abby's research interests relate to the intersection of democracy and identity in a comparative context. Using political psychology methods, she is focused on answering questions about rhetoric, separatist conflict, electoral institutions, and party sorting.

abigail.woodfield@stonybrook.edu