People
Current Students
We hold weekly meetings open to the University of Florida community in the Informatics Institute on Wednesday at 2pm (2023 Fall semester). Students engage with faculty about research projects and we plan to present student research at conferences. In the past, students presented their research at the Southern Political Science Association conference; the Election Science, Reform, and Administration conference; the State Politics and Policy conference, and the Florida Political Science Association conference.
Alumni
Our former Election Science undergraduates are or have been gainfully employed at Facebook, Google, Catalist, The Brennan Center, Data for Progress, VoteShield, New York Senate Democratic Caucus, the Alachua Supervisor of Elections, Duval Supervisor of Elections, Palm Beach Supervisor of Elections, as well as with political parities, nonprofits, and news outlets. They have attended PhD programs at UC Berkeley, University of Maryland, Florida State University, UC San Diego, Penn State; as well law schools at Georgetown, Emory, Yale, and Washington and Lee.
Graduate students in academic jobs include:
Brian Amos, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Wichita State University.
Lia Merivaki, PhD, is Associate Professor of Political Science and Public Administration at Mississippi State University.
Enrijeta Shino, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Alabama.
Affiliated Faculty
TED BIRDIS
Ted Birdis is the Rob Hiaasen Senior Lecturer in Investigative Reporting in the Department of Journalism. Before joining UF in 2018, Bridis was editor of the Associated Press’ Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington investigative team and was AP’s leading newsroom expert on security practices for source-protection and on the U.S. Freedom of Information Act and related laws. He co-leads Fresh Take Florida, a news service of student journalists that produces top-caliber investigative and political Florida content.
JUAN GILBERT
Juan Gilbert is the Andrew Banks Family Preeminence Endowed Professor, and the Department Chair of the Department of Computer Science & Information & Engineering. A computer scientist, he is a researcher, inventor, and educator, as well as a staunch advocate of diversity in the computing sciences. His research interests with respect to voting and elections include Human-Centered Computing, Electronic Voting (Prime III) and Research Alliance for Accessible Voting (RAAV). He leads the Human-Experience Research Lab at UF.
MICHAEL MCDONALD
Michael P. McDonald is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Florida. His research interests include elections, surveys, and statistical methodology. He has a distinguished academic record, as author of Pandemic to Insurrection: Voting in the 2020 US Presidential Election and co-author of Numerical Issues in Statistical Computing for the Social Scientist and co-editor of The Marketplace of Democracy: Electoral Competition and American Politics. He has published over forty peer-reviewed articles and numerous other academic writings. He frequently comments on elections in the media and has written several opinion editorials for major newspapers.
DANIEL A. SMITH
Daniel Smith is Professor and Chair of Political Science at the University of Florida. He is the President of ElectionSmith, Inc., a political consulting firm, and is the past Chair of the State Politics and Policy Section of the American Political Science Association. His research mainly examines how political institutions affect political behavior across and within the American states. In addition to publishing numerous peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, his authored and coauthored books include Tax Crusaders and the Politics of Direct Democracy (Routledge, 1998), Educated by Initiative (University of Michigan Press, 2004), and State and Local Politics: Institutions and Reform (4th edition, Cengage, 2015).