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Walter C.
Wilson (entered 2003) is a magna cum laude
graduate of Augustana
College in Sioux Falls, South Dakota,
where he received a B.A. in government and international affairs in
2003. He is also a 2006-2007 American Political Science
Association Congressional Fellow, which he served with Congressman
Charles Gonzalez, D-TX. During the fellowship, Wilson worked as a legislative assistant,
legislative correspondent, and assistant liaison to the Congressional
Hispanic Caucus, and conducted more than 25 research interviews with
representatives and members of congressional staffs, respectively. He
expects to defend his dissertation, “Latino Representation in
Congress,” in the summer of 2008. He has
presented research at meetings of the American (2007), Midwest
(2006) and Southwest (2005) Political Science Associations.
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Kate
E. Carney Kate E. Carney
(entered 2004) completed her first two years of undergraduate study at
Creighton University and finished her degree from The University of Oklahoma
in 2004 where she majored in political science and minored in history with an
emphasis on Russia and Eastern Europe. As a Carl Albert
Center undergraduate
research fellow, Carney worked with Professor Aimee Franklin on a project
focused on budgeting in local governments and assisted with the presentation
of the paper at the 2004 annual meeting of the Midwest Regional Public
Finance Conference. She also participated in N.E.W. Leadership-Oklahoma, a five-day summer institute
in political leadership for Oklahoma
undergraduate women, and remains an active alumni and volunteer. Kate is
active in local politics, serving in the 2004 Oklahoma House campaign of Pat
Potts and the re-election campaign of Oklahoma Attorney General Drew
Edmondson. As a Graduate Fellow, Kate has focused her attention on women in
politics, representation, and congressional caucuses. She has presented
papers at the 2006 and the 2007 annual meetings of the Southern Political
Science Association. She is currently
serving as an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow in Washington, D.C.
working in the office of Rep. Daniel Lipinski. The focus of Kate’s
dissertation is the role of congressional caucuses in the modern Congress and
the ability of caucuses to reach their policy goals.
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Matt O.
Field (entered 2004) earned a masters degree in U.S. History from Western Illinois University
after graduating summa cum laude from WIU with a B.A. in history and
minors in political science and religious studies. While an
undergraduate, he was an Honors and Departmental Scholar who wrote his
undergraduate honors thesis on the Scopes Monkey Trial. He was also the recipient
of a baseball scholarship at WIU and played for two years on the team. In the
summer of 1998, he served as an intern in the office of Rep. John Shimkus
(R-Ill.). The following summer, Matt was an intern for Sen. Connie Mack
(R-Fl.) working with the International Religious Persecution Act.
During both of those summers, he also worked for Keelen
Communications Consulting Firm in Washington,
D.C. As a Carl Albert
Congressional Fellow, Matt specializes in political theory and international
relations. He was inducted into Phi
Kappa Phi (spring 2006) and was a Civitas Fellow at
The Center for Public Justice (summer 2006). He presented a conference paper
entitled “What’s the Point? Supreme Court Nominations, the Senate
Judiciary Committee, and Stare Decisis” at the 2006 Annual Meeting of the
American Political Science Association and with Ron Peters, Keith Gaddie, and
Ben Gravely, presented “The Hastert Rules: Majority Party Governance in
the U.S. House of Representatives” at the 2008 Annual Meeting of the
Southern Political Science Association. His dissertation is tentatively
titled Congress, the Court, and the
Constitution: Constitutional Deliberation in Congress. Matt is currently
serving as an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow in
the office of Rep. Dan Lungren (R-Calif.) in Washington,
D.C.
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William Curtis Ellis (entered 2005) is a graduate of
Randolph-Macon College (RMC) in Ashland,
Virginia
(just north of Richmond), where he
received a B.A. in Political Science and Economics. While attending RMC,
Curtis re-established the Randolph-Macon Chapter of Young Democrats. During
the summer before his senior year, Curtis received one of
Randolph-Macon’s many Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships. His
project, entitled Economic Perceptions and Partisan Voting Behavior, was
awarded one of the American
Academy of Political
and Social Science awards for Best Undergraduate Research. During the
rest of his time at RMC, Curtis focused on state government. As an intern
with the Virginia state government, Curtis worked for Delegate Kenneth R.
Plum, a senior Democratic member of the Virginia House, as well as Lt.
Governor (and Governor-elect) Timothy M. Kaine.
Since entering graduate school, the focus of Curtis’s scholarship has
become the study of congressional institutions and issues of race and
inequality in public policy. Curtis has presented papers at the 2007
meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association and the 2008 meeting of
the Southern Political Science Association.
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Walt Jatkowski III (entered 2006)
is a summa cum laude graduate of Bradley
University in Peoria, Illinois
where he received his B.S. in political science in 2006. During his time at
Bradley, Walt was a member of the Phi Eta Sigma
freshman honors fraternity and a member of the Phi Kappa Phi honors
fraternity. Walt was also honored as the Outstanding Senior in
Bradley’s political science department upon completion of his degree.
In spring 2006, Walt worked as an intern for the re-election campaign of
Illinois State Representative Aaron Schock. In his
first year as a Carl Albert Congressional Fellow, Walt wrote a paper that
earned him the V. Stanley Vardys Award, which
honors outstanding research and writing by students in
the political science Ph.D. program at University of Oklahoma. His paper was titled “Differential
India: How and Why Liberalization Has Not Affected India Equally.” Walt
also co-authored a paper, “The Forgotten House? Treaties,
Executive Agreements, and the Role of the U.S.
House of Representatives,” with Carl Albert
Center Associate Director Glen Krutz
and Professor Jeffrey Peake of Bowling Green State
University. They
presented their paper at the annual meeting of the American Political Science
Association in 2007. Walt’s current research interests include
the impact of congressional hearing testimony on legislative decisions in
highly technical policy areas, partisan polarization in Congress, and the
effects of the timing of retirements on partisan seat retention in open seat
elections.
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F O R M E R F E L L O W S
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M. Lynsey Morris Barron (1999) received her B.A. in
1999 from Berry College
in Rome, Georgia, with a double major in
political science and philosophy/religion. She graduated with honors, writing
her honors thesis in political theory. At Berry,
Morris was president of the Student Government Association and Young
Democrats, and competed on Berry's
speech and debate team where she was Georgia State Champion in Extemporaneous
Speaking, Rhetorical Criticism, and Parliamentary Debate. She was also
a congressional intern for then-Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle
(D-S.D.). After coming to OU, she participated in the ICPSR Summer
Program in Quantitative Methods at the University of Michigan
in 2000. During her APSA Congressional Fellowship in the office of Rep.
Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.), she was the primary staff coordinator for the
Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues and the Pro-Choice Caucus. After
completing the APSA fellowship, Barron worked as a lobbyist for the American
Association of University Women and then for the March of Dimes.
Barron currently lives in Atlanta, GA, where she received a full scholarship to attend law
school at Emory University as a Robert Woodruff
Fellow. She serves on the Emory Law Journal and will spend the
summer of 2008 in the law office of Jones Day.
Nancy L. Bednar (entered 1991) graduated magna cum laude from
California State University Dominguez Hills in Carson, California
with a B.A. in political science. Before becoming a Carl Albert Fellow, she
spent a semester in the graduate program at the University of Southern
California. She is a member of Phi Kappa Phi National Honor Society and was
listed in Who's Who Among Students in American Universities and Colleges,
1990-91. Her research interests include candidate emergence and congressional
elections. She is co-author with Allen Hertzke of a
book chapter, “Oklahoma: The Christian Right and Republican
Realignment,” in The Christian Right and the 1994 Elections,
edited by Mark J. Rozell and Clyde Wilcox (New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishing), and a journal article,
"The Christian Right and Republican Realignment in Oklahoma,"
published in PS: Political Science and Politics 28:11-15. Nancy's
dissertation, "The Christian Right and Congressional Elections in
Oklahoma: Can a Social Movement Impact Candidate Centered Elections?" was
completed in 1999. She teaches at Del Mar College in Corpus Christi,
Texas.
Lauren Cohen Bell (1994) earned her B.A. at The College of Wooster, in Wooster, Ohio
with a major in political science and a minor in Spanish. She was awarded
Wooster's Paul Evans Lamale Award for outstanding
work in the social sciences, and served as both the editor of the college
newspaper and as student body president. In 1996, she attended the ICPSR Summer
Program in Quantitative Methods at the University of Michigan. After serving as
an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow on Sen. Edward
M. Kennedy’s judiciary committee staff, Bell wrote her dissertation on the role of interest
groups in the Senate’s confirmation process for presidential nominees.
Her book based on this research, Warring Factions: Interest Groups, Money,
and the New Plitics of Senate Confirmation, was
published by The Ohio State University Press in 2002. The U.S.
Congress, A Simulation for Students was published by Thomson/Wadsworth in
2005. In addition to her books, she has published papers on the Senate
confirmation process in such journals as Judicature and Political
Research Quarterly; on congressional staff (with former fellow and current
Center faculty member Cindy Simon Rosenthal) in The Journal of Public
Administration Research and Theory and in the edited volume Women
Transforming Congress (University of Oklahoma Press, 2002); and on the
public's assessment of the 2000 presidential election debates in the edited
text, The Millenium Election: Communication in the
2000 Campaign. Bell's work on Senate filibusters (with former fellow
L. Marvin Overby) was published in The Journal of Politics, Volume 66,
Issue 3 (August 2004). Lauren Cohen Bell is assistant professor of
political science at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Virginia, where she
also serves as the assistant director of the College Honors Program. In spring
2004, she received a Thomas Branch Award for Excellence in Teaching, a
student-selected award.
Kenneth M. Cosgrove (1986) holds a B.A. in Government from Suffolk University
in Boston, MA. As a grad student, he presented a number
of papers at professional meetings and was an APSA Congressional fellow in the
offices of Senator Bob Kerrey (D-NE) and Representative Tim Johnson (D-SD). He
is the author of the book Branded
Conservatives: How the Brand Brought the American Right From the Periphery to
the Center of American Politics (New
York: Peter Lang, 2007). His other published work
includes a co-authored (with former fellow L. Marvin Overby) article on racial
redistricting and the representation of minority interests, which was published
in Journal of Politics in 1996, and he published a biography of Charles Haughey, former leader of Ireland, in Encyclopedia of
European Political Leaders (Greenwood, 1995). Cosgrove taught for eight
years at Bethany College
in West Virginia,
where he created two interdisciplinary programs – one in media and politics,
and one in North American studies. An avid believer in the internationalization
of academic curricula, Cosgrove participated in a Fulbright-Hays program on
Sustainable Development in Brazil,
a Salzburg Seminar on Presidential Leadership and Media Democracy, a faculty
exchange with Zhejiang Normal University
(PR China) and the SUNY-Plattsburgh Summer Institute on Quebec. His research interests include
political marketing, social movements, legislatures, Canadian politics, and
Irish politics. He is currently Assistant Professor of Government and Graduate
Program Director at Suffolk University in Boston.
He lives with his wife, Erin, in Hampton
Falls, NH.
Courtney Cullison (entered 2001) is from Sallisaw,
Oklahoma, and is a cum laude graduate
of Oklahoma State University
with an honors degree in political science. She wrote her honors thesis on
presidential impeachment. Before becoming a Carl Albert Fellow, she
served as an intern in the office of Representative Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and later worked as Legislative Correspondent for
that office. As a Carl Albert Fellow, Courtney presented papers at the
annual meetings of the Midwestern Political Science Association, Southwestern
Social Science Association, and the Southern Political Science Association. She
also participated in the ICPSR summer program at University of Michigan in
2003. During her American Political Science Association Congressional
Fellowship, she was responsible for social welfare policy in the office of Rep.
Henry E. Brown, Jr. (R-SC). Courtney is currently on faculty at the University of Texas
– Tyler,
and is working on her dissertation exploring the role of grassroots activation
in the representational linkage between Members of Congress and their
constituents.
Jocelyn Jones Evans (1997) is a summa cum laude graduate of Berry College
in Rome, Georgia. Her B.S. degree program
was interdisciplinary in nature with a focus on political theory and speech.
She participated in the ICPSR Summer Program in Quantitative Methods at the University of Michigan in 1998. As an American
Political Science Association Congressional Fellow (2000-2001), she conducted
research for her dissertation in Washington,
D.C., on partisanship and
women’s legislative behavior in the U.S. House of Representatives. While
finishing her degree, she taught at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
(2002-2003). Evans received her doctorate in 2002 and is currently an assistant
professor of political science in the department of government at the University of West Florida. She is the author of Women,
Partisanship, and the Congress (2005 Palgrave). In addition, she has
coauthored research appearing in Social Science Quarterly, Political
Research Quarterly, Journal of Political Science Education, Oklahoma Politics, and
Florida Political Chronicle. She has also contributed book reviews to APSA’s Legislative Studies Section
Newsletter. Her project Americans
Governing, an online multimedia resource on American government, is
packaged with Houghton’s introductory texts including Janda, Berry,
and Goldman’s Challenge of Democracy and Gittleson
et al.’s American Government.
Her current manuscript, Congress Under Attack, explores the
impact of 9/11, anthrax, and an age of terror on the culture of Capitol Hill.
Lesli E. McCollum Gooch (1995) graduated summa cum laude from the State
University of New York, College at Brockport, with a B.S. in political
science. During her senior year, she worked as an intern in the Office of
the Clerk at the United States Supreme Court. As a Carl Albert Fellow,
she presented conference papers individually and collaboratively on topics such
as congressional responses to Supreme Court decisions overturning federal
statutes, public opinion of Congress, the candidate image game in congressional
elections, and the prospects of nighttime incarceration as an intermediate
sanction. A paper she co-authored with Professor R. Keith Gaddie on the
incumbency advantage won the Pi Sigma Alpha Award for the best paper presented
at the 1998 meeting of the Southwestern Political Science Association and
served as a foundation for later publications in the American Review of
Politics and in The House of Representatives: Reform or Rebuild?,
edited by Joseph P. Zimmerman and Wilma Rule. McCollum’s essay on
the Oklahoma
judiciary appeared in The Almanac of Oklahoma Politics (1998, 2000, and
2002), edited by Gary Copeland, R. Keith Gaddie, and Craig Williams. She
began her work on Capitol Hill as an American Political Science Association
Congressional Fellow in the office of Rep. Marge Roukema (R-N.J.), 1999-2000,
and continued to serve as Rep. Roukema’s legislative director until the
congresswoman retired in 2002. Lesli
McCollum Gooch received her Ph.D. in political science from the University of Oklahoma in 2006. Her dissertation,
“When Politics Is Personal: The Role of Personal Policy Interests in
Legislative Activity,” was completed while she served as legislative
director and senior policy advisor, 2002-2007, for Rep. Gary G. Miller (R-Calif.). She is now a partner at Potomac
Partners DC, where she provides federal advocacy and consulting services
in the area of financial services policy.
William E. Granstaff (1990)
graduated with a B.S. and departmental honors in political science from Oklahoma State University
where he was a Presidential Scholar and a member of Phi Kappa Phi and Pi Sigma
Alpha National Honor Societies. His unique background includes recording with
the Beach Boys and working for 10 years as a professional
writer-producer-arranger-performer in various San Francisco Bay Area recording
studios. His dissertation explores the values of Senate deliberations in the
making of U. S. foreign policy. He is the author of Losing Our Democratic
Spirit: Congressional Deliberation and the Dictatorship of Propaganda published
by Praeger Press in 1999.
Ronald J.
Grimes (1980) is a lifelong political
activist. He remained in Washington after his
congressional fellowship and served as Legislative Assistant (1984-1990) and as
Legislative Director (1991-1999) to U.S. Senator John Glenn (D-Ohio). Ron
served as Director of Congressional and Legislative Affairs at the Federal
Emergency Management Agency during the 106th Congress, 1999-2001. He served as
Legislative Director for U.S. Representative Tom Lantos (D-Calif.)
during the 108th and 109th Congresses, 2003-2006, and is currently serving as
Chief of Staff to U.S. Representative Tim Ryan (D-Ohio). Ron Grimes and
his wife Sue have two sons and live in Fairfax,
Virginia.
Melody Huckaby (1999) was a National Merit Scholar who graduated cum
laude from the University
of Oklahoma in 1993 with
a B.A. in political science. She interned for Congressman Mike Synar (D-Okla.) following her
graduation. In 1995, she participated in a joint legal program conducted by the
University of Oklahoma College of Law and the Queens College at Oxford
University. She received her J.D. degree from the University of Oklahoma
College of Law and was admitted to the Oklahoma Bar in 1997. She then
participated in a joint project between the United States Information Agency
and the American University of Kyrgyzstan in Bishkek where she taught
undergraduate courses in law and worked with the University staff to
construct an American style law school. Upon returning to Oklahoma, Huckaby
worked as a private sector attorney until she entered the Carl Albert Graduate
Fellowship Program. As a Carl Albert Fellow, she participated in the ICPSR
Summer Program in Quantitative Methods at the University of Michigan in
2000. She also attended two intensive language programs, one for Spanish
in Mexico in 2001, and a second for Portuguese in Brazil in 2003. In
collaboration with Jocelyn Jones, Lynsey Morris,
and Cindy Simon Rosenthal, Melody Huckaby has presented papers at the Western,
Southwestern and Midwest political science conferences. Huckaby and R.
Keith Gaddie collaborated on a chapter for the edited volume, The Roads to
Congress 2000. She spent her fourth year as a Carl Albert Fellow
doing field research in the Mexican, Argentine, and Brazilian Congresses.
Her dissertation was successfully defended in summer 2006 and is entitled
“The Representative Method: Legislative Behavior in Argentina, Brazil,
and Mexico.”
Currently, Melody is continuing her research in the areas of representation and
institutions and is serving as an assistant professor of political science at
Cameron University.
Steve Jarding (1987) has an undergraduate degree in political
science and communications from the University
of South Dakota and a master’s
degree in political science from the University
of Oklahoma.
Jarding has spent most of the past 30 years studying, teaching, and working in
American politics. In 1986 he served as executive director of the South Dakota Democratic
party during then-Rep. Tom Daschle’s victorious race for the U.S.
Senate. In 1988 Jarding served as former Nebraska Gov. Bob Kerrey’s
communications director in Kerrey's successful race for U.S. Senate.
Jarding served in a similar capacity in Kerry’s 1994 re-election
bid. In 1995-96, Jarding served as communications director of the
Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC). Citing Jarding's work at the DSCC, Roll Call Magazine, in
September 1996, named Jarding one of the “50 most influential”
political people in Washington.
Jarding has served as executive director of two leadership PACs – in 1998
for Kerrey and in 2002 for Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina. In 2001, Jarding
served as campaign manager to Virginia
businessman Mark Warner’s successful gubernatorial bid. The Washington
Post called that race the best-run campaign in modern Virginia history. In September 2002,
Jarding and his successful political style was the subject of a profile in The
New York Times magazine. In 2006 Jarding co-authored the book, Foxes in the Henhouse (published by
Simon and Shuster), which offered a blueprint for how Democrats can win again
in the South and in rural America.
Also in 2006, Jarding ran Jim Webb’s improbable campaign in which Webb
unseated incumbent U.S. Senator George Allen in Virginia. Jarding has taught
government and politics at the University
of Oklahoma, George
Mason University,
and American University. He is a past Fellow at
the Institute of Politics
at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, at Harvard University
where he currently is a member of the faculty.
Karen M. Kedrowski (1987) is a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Minnesota where she majored in political
science, history, and French. As an undergraduate, Kedrowski received numerous
academic honors including memberships in Phi Beta Kappa and Mortar Board. Upon
graduation, she received a Coro Foundation Public Service Fellowship. During
this fellowship year, she designed a non-profit adult literacy foundation
funded by Southwestern Bell Telephone, which serves as a statewide
clearinghouse for adult literacy services offered in Missouri. As a Carl
Albert Fellow, Kedrowski presented papers at annual meetings of the American,
Midwest, Southern, and Southwestern Political Science Associations. During her
APSA Congressional Fellowship year, 1991-1992, she worked as assistant press
secretary to Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.) and as a legislative analyst for the
Congressional Sunbelt Caucus. She wrote several policy analyses for
Families USA Foundation, where she was a health policy analyst, 1992-1994. Her
dissertation on the Congress's use of the media was published as Media
Entrepreneurs and the Media Enterprise in the U.S. Congress (Cresskill, NJ:
Hampton Press, 1996) and it was later excerpted in Doris Graber's Media
Power in Politics. She has also published articles in Armed Forces
and Society, Perspective on Politics, PS: Political Science and Politics, Extensions,
and The Journal of Political Science; book reviews in Women and
Politics, American Political Science Review, and Political
Communication; and has made numerous presentations at national, regional,
and state conferences. Her syllabus for the course “The National
Executive” is featured in the syllabi collection, A View Into the
Classroom: Syllabi by Award Winning Teachers (APSA, 2001). She is currently
completing a coauthored book tentatively entitled Assertive Advocates and
Reluctant Champions: Breast Cancer and Prostate Cancer Activism and Media
Advocacy. Karen Kedrowski is an associate professor and the chair of the
political science department at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South
Carolina. Since arriving at Winthrop in 1994, she has received numerous faculty
grants and awards. She served as the director of Winthrop’s Office for Effective
Teaching, 1999-2001, and was named Outstanding Junior Professor in 1999.
Robin M.
LeBlanc (1988) graduated summa cum
laude from Berry College in Rome,
Georgia with a
B.A. in English. She was a Presidential Scholar at Berry and a member in Alpha Chi and Omicron
Delta Kappa. She completed her Ph.D. in Political Science in 1994 at the
University of Oklahoma. She is currently Associate
Professor of Politics at Washington and Lee University
in Lexington, Virginia where she teaches classes in
comparative politics, political philosophy, and gender and politics.
LeBlanc’s first book Bicycle
Citizens: The Political World of the Japanese Housewife (University of
California Press, 1999) was a Choice
“Outstanding Academic Title” of 1999. Bicycle Citizens was based on the dissertation LeBlanc completed
under the direction of Ron Peters. As a dissertation the Bicycle Citizens project received both the American Political
Science Association Women and Politics Section Award for the Best Dissertation
on Women and Politics as well as the Carrie Chapman Catt Prize for Research on
Women and Politics. LeBlanc has been the recipient of two Fulbright Fellowships
(1991, 2002) to conduct research in Japan, as well as a Japan Society
for the Promotion of Science postdoctoral research fellowship (1999). In Fall
2007, she was the Japan International Christian University Foundation Visiting
Professor of Political Science at International
Christian University
in Tokyo.
LeBlanc has published several articles on gender and the democratic consciousness
of “ordinary” people. Currently, she is completing her second book,
The Art of the Gut: Manhood, Power, and
Ethics in Japanese Politics.
Lori D. Lester (1987) completed her dissertation, “Congressional
Budgeting for Defense: Theory, Process, and Outcome,” in 1993. She was a
senior resources manager for the U.S. Department of Defense for many years and
then worked as a freelance writer after her retirement. Lori died on
September 3, 2005.
J. Tony Litherland (1984) focused his dissertation research on
the role of foreign-based interest groups on American foreign policy,
specifically in regard to Central America, and he spent a couple of weeks in El
Salvador conducting interviews. Since that time, he has made six trips abroad
to Argentina and Africa in
part to conduct interviews at U.S.
embassies and in part to participate in Southern Baptist mission efforts. Tony
Litherland is the James R. Scales Professor of Political Science at Oklahoma
Baptist University and served as the
education director for the Oklahoma American Legion’s summer Boys State
Program, 2000-2005, and as president of the Oklahoma Political Science
Association, 1999-2000. He was named the 2002 OPSA Political Science Teacher of
the Year. He and Dr. Lucrecia
Litherland published an article on bilingual education policy in the 2007
edition of Oklahoma Politics.
John P. Meiers (1994) graduated summa cum laude from Rockhurst College in Kansas City, Missouri with a B.A. in political science and global studies.
While an undergraduate student, he worked as an intern in the Washington,D.C.
offices of Rep. Alan Wheat (D-Mo.) and Sen. David Boren (D-Okla.).
Meiers also served as translator for several trips to
Russia and the former Soviet Republics from 1991 to 1993. In addition, he has written and
delivered papers on congressional oversight of intelligence to the American
Political Science Association and on Ronald Reagan and Iran-Contra at the
Ronald Reagan Presidential Conference at Hofstra University. Meiers has interests in Russian
language and culture, U.S. foreign policy, and congressional elections. He completed
his dissertation, “The Tenuous Majority: The Effect of Two-Party
Competition on the House of Representatives,” in 1999. He currently
works at H&R Block in Kansas City, Missouri as a Project Manager for cosourcing Information Technology projects to India
and Russia. He has also taught political science at Rockhurst University
since 1999, with focus on the U.S. and the Pacific Rim, Eastern
European/Russian Politics, and Politics in Fiction and Film. He lives in Lenexa, Kansas with his wife Jeanine, son Nathan, and daughter Abigail.
Matthew C. Moen (1980) earned his B.A. degree in political science and history
with honors at Augustana College in South
Dakota. His first book, The Christian Right and Congress (University
of Alabama Press, 1989; reprinted 1992) was nominated for the New England
Historical Association Book Award. His second book, The Transformation of
the Christian Right (University of Alabama Press, 1992), was
chosen an Outstanding Book by the Gustavus
Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights in the United States.
He also co-edited The Religious Challenge to the State (Temple
University Press, 1992) and co-authored, with Gary Copeland, The
Contemporary Congress: A Bicameral Approach (West/Wadsworth/International
Thompson Publishing, 1999). His most recent book, Changing Members: The Maine Legislature in the Era of Term
Limits (Lexington Books, 2004) is
co-authored with Kenneth T. Palmer and Richard J. Powell. Matt Moen is
Professor of Political Science and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at
The University of South Dakota. Prior to joining USD, he worked at the
University of Maine for sixteen years, where he served as professor and chair
of the Department of Political Science, as special assistant to the president,
as director of the Congressional Internship Program, and as University of Maine
Trustee Professor, a title bestowed for academic achievement. He has
served as chairperson of the Professional Ethics Committee of the American
Political Science Association, and as president of the New England Political
Science Association. He currently serves as president of the
Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences (2007-2008), a national organization
of 600 deans of arts and sciences.
Jonathan D. Mott (1992) graduated cum laude
with a B.A. in political science from Brigham Young University in Provo,
Utah. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma in 1998. His
dissertation, “Washington Style: Members of Congress on Capitol
Hill,” focused on U.S. House members’ styles in
Washington. During the course of his studies, Jon served as both an intern
in the Utah State Legislature and as an APSA Fellow in the U. S. House of
Representatives. He is currently serving as Assistant to the Academic Vice
President – Academic Technology at Brigham Young University, where he is
responsible for academic technology planning and strategy campus wide.
Previously, Jon was the Managing Director of the Center for Instructional
Design (recently renamed the Center for Teaching and Learning). He continues to
teach regularly in the Public Policy Masters program and, more recently, in the
Instructional Psychology & Technology program at BYU. Jon’s research
interests have shifted with his career responsibilities to focus on academic
technology, teaching and learning technology, learning effectiveness, etc. He
has published several articles in both political science and instructional
design journals. He currently serves as a member of higher education advisory
boards for Blackboard and Adobe Systems. Jon and his wife Kim have 4 children
and a St. Bernard. In their spare time, Jon & Kim also maintain ThisNation.com, an American government
and politics website
L. Marvin Overby (1985)
earned his A.B. degree in political science with honors at Davidson College and
came to the Carl Albert Center after spending a year in Europe as a Thomas J.
Watson Fellow. During his APSA Congressional Fellowship, he served as a
legislative assistant to Rep. David E. Price (D-N.C.) while completing research
for his dissertation, “At Home in Dixie: Parties, Parochialism, and Senate
Politics in the Modern South.” Overby is currently a professor of
political science at the University of Missouri. Prior to joining the faculty
at Mizzou, he held positions at Loyola University
Chicago (1990-1993) and the University of Mississippi (1993-2002). While at
Mississippi, he won the Cora Lee Graham Award for Outstanding Teaching of
Freshmen Students and helped found the school's Social Science Research
Laboratory. Overby has twice served as a
visiting professor of American politics at the Johns Hopkins University -
Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies in Nanjing, PRC
(1997-1998 and 2005-2006) and as Fulbright Distinguished Laszlo Orszagh Chair in American Studies at the University of Sezged, Hungary (2000-2001). Overby's
research interests include legislative redistricting, legislative leadership,
senatorial confirmation of judicial appointments, legislative rules and
procedures, legislative committee compositions, citizen attitudes toward
minorities, and the growth of the Republican party in the South. His research has appeared in such journals as
the American Journal of Political Science,
American Political Science Review, American Politics Quarterly, Journal of Legislative Studies, Journal of Politics, Justice System Journal, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Political Research Quarterly, Polity, Social Science Quarterly, and
the State Politics and Policy Quarterly. He has served on the editorial board of American Journal of Political Science,
as executive director of the Southern Political Science Association, vice
president and program chair for the Southwestern Political Science Association,
and is currently associate editor for the Journal
of Legislative Studies.
John David Rausch, Jr. (1989) received
his B.A. in political science magna cum laude from the University of
Alaska Fairbanks with a minor in German.
While an undergraduate, he also studied at Webster University in Vienna,
Austria. He completed his APSA Congressional
Fellowship year in Washington, D.C., in the office of Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.). His
dissertation, “The Elite in the Term Limitation Phenomenon,” was
completed in 1995. He is co-editor of The
Test of Time: Coping with Legislative Term Limits (Lexington Press, 2003)
and The Encyclopedia of the United States
Congress (Facts on File, 2007). He
is co-author of the Texas edition of Government
in America (Pearson/Longman, 2008).
Rausch also has published research in the areas of direct democracy,
state and local politics, religion and politics, and women and politics. He is an associate professor of political
science at West Texas A&M University where he was recognized by the
university with the 2001-2002 Research/Creative Excellence Award and the
2004-2005 Distance Learning Innovation Award.
In 2003, WTAMU President Dr. Russell Long appointed Dave Rausch faculty
athletics representative to the NCAA..
Cindy Simon
Rosenthal (1991) had more than 14 years of
experience with state legislatures, including service as director of legislative
management programs and director of publications for the National Conference of
State Legislatures, prior to becoming a Carl Albert Fellow. Her dissertation on
the leadership style of female legislative committee chairs received research
funds from the National Science Foundation and was later published under the
title When Women Lead (Oxford University Press, 1998). In 1996, she won
the American Political Science Association Women and Politics Best Dissertation
Award and the Sophinisba Breckinridge Award for the
best paper on women and politics at the Midwest Political Science Association
annual meeting. She is currently the director and curator of the Carl Albert
Center. She is an associate professor in political science at the
University of Oklahoma where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses. In
1999, she was named the Irene Rothbaum Outstanding Assistant Professor of
the College of Arts and Sciences, and she was named the Carlisle Mabrey and Lurleen Mabrey Presidential Professor in 2002. The Oklahoma
Political Science Association honored her as the Outstanding Oklahoma Political
Scientist of the Year in 2000. She has published numerous journal
articles and has contributed chapters to The Oklahoma Almanac of
Politics (1998, 1999), Women and Elective Office (1998, 2005), and Women
in Higher Education: Empowering Change (2002). She is currently involved in
two major projects including an analysis of Title IX and intercollegiate
athletics, and a study of gender representation in federal systems around the
world.
J. Michael Sharp (1980) is professor of political science and serves as
political science coordinator in the Department of Social Science at
Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. He served as chair of the Department of
Political Science from 1997 to 2003 and as chair of the Department of Political
Science and Sociology from 2003 to 2004. He is the author of the
two-volume Directory of Congressional Voting Scores and Interest Group
Ratings published in 1988 by Facts on File. Second, third, and fourth
editions of the directory were published by Congressional Quarterly Press, the
latest in 2006. The directory is also in Congressional Quarterly’s
electronic library and is updated annually. Sharp’s dissertation
research on party activity in the congressional recruitment process included a
survey of about 1000 candidates for Congress and was completed in spring 1990.
He has been a member of the executive committee of the Oklahoma Political
Science Association for several years, serving as president in 1993-1994 and
again in 2004-2005. Sharp is a referee and member of the editorial board for Oklahoma
Politics.
Frank J. Smist, Jr. (1980), during his APSA Congressional Fellowship in
Washington, D.C., conducted over 500 interviews for his dissertation research.
The dissertation, Congress Oversees the United States Intelligence
Community, 1947-1989, received an award from the National Intelligence
Study Center for serious research and objective writing on intelligence
published in 1988. His book by the same title was published by The University
of Tennessee Press in 1990. The second edition, published in 1994, was updated
to include material that encompasses the Bush and Clinton administrations.
Frank Smist teaches political science at Rockhurst
University in Kansas City, Missouri.
William A. "Doc"
Syers (1981) is the Vice President of
Congressional Relations for ITT Corporation – a $9 billion company with
34,500 employees worldwide. Prior to joining ITT in December 2002, he lobbied
defense and environmental issues for six years at Hughes Electronics and
Newport News Shipbuilding. While serving as a Carl Albert Congressional Fellow,
he went to Washington, D.C. in fall 1984. He began his career with Rep.
Dick Cheney (R-Wy.) in the House Republican
Leadership. He later served as an Appropriations Associate on the House
VA-HUD and Defense subcommittees for Ranking Member and then Chairman Jerry
Lewis (R-Calif.). He did his undergraduate work
at Bradley University (1976) and has received master’s degrees from both
the University of Denver in International Studies (1980) and the University of
Oklahoma in Congressional Studies (1985).
Joseph A. Theissen
(1982) was actively involved in managing and consulting with several state legislative
campaigns in his home state of Minnesota before becoming a Carl Albert
Fellow. His dissertation research on congressional conference committees
was based on some very interesting cases, including the 1986 tax reform
legislation. He took a staff position with Rep. Tim Penny (D-Minn.) after completing his APSA Congressional Fellowship
in Washington, and later served on the staff of Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.). He was National Policy Director of the
Concord Coalition in both Washington, D.C. and Boston, and he worked on Bill
Clinton’s 1996 campaign. He then went back to the Hill as policy
director for the Blue Dog Democrats under Rep. Gary Condit (D-Calif.) and Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.).
Theissen served as senior director of congressional
and public affairs, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 1997 to mid-2001. He left
the U.S. Chamber to become executive director and CEO of Taxpayers for Common
Sense, a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., fighting for
policies that are both environmentally and economically sound. He is
currently president of Joe Theissen and Associates
and serves non-profit and corporate clients as a management consultant, policy
analyst, and government representative.
Arturo Vega (1983) is director of the public administration graduate
program at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas. He received
his doctoral degree from the University of Oklahoma in 1990, where he served as
a fellow at the Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center. He has
18 years experience in political science and public policy research and
teaching. He currently teaches undergraduate courses on the Congress, the
American presidency, and Latino politics; and, at the graduate level, he
teaches research methods, quantitative analyses, program evaluation, and urban
policy and planning. Prior to his arrival at St. Mary’s in fall 2007, Art
taught at the University of Texas San Antonio (UTSA). His research focuses on
urban public policies, municipal structures, and Latino politics. He has
participated in over a dozen community research projects, evaluations, and
community needs assessments.
Mary Scribner Wallace (1987) is a graduate of Berry College in Georgia.
During her APSA Congressional Fellowship, she served as a legislative assistant
to Rep. Rick Lazio (R-N.Y.). Upon returning to Georgia, she taught in the
political science departments of Berry College and Columbus State
University. In 2002, she received an Atlanta Law School Fellowship and
completed a J.D. degree at Emory University School of Law in 2005. She is a
full-time associate with the law firm Charles W. Miller, P.C. in Columbus,
Georgia.
Jean Shumway Warner (1988) received a B.A. in English from Roosevelt University in Chicago and spent several years as staff director of The Policy Sciences Group at Oklahoma State University where she worked on research funded by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Justice, the Oklahoma Governor’s Office and the Oklahoma Commission on Children and Youth. During that period she presented or published numerous research papers, including one in the Yale Law and Policy Review. While she was a Carl Albert Fellow, she presented conference papers on federal agenda setting, AIDS policy options, and the role of party drift in voluntary retirement from the U.S. House. She completed her APSA Congressional Fellowship in 1990-1991 in the offices of Rep. Mary Rose Oakar (D-Ohio) and Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.). Warner defended her dissertation, "A Policy Study of Youth Service: Synthesizing Analysis of Policy Content and Policy Process Over Time,” in the summer of 1995. She is the author of a chapter on Oklahoma's governors in two editions of The Almanac of Oklahoma Politics (1998 and 2000), edited by Gary W. Copeland, R. Keith Gaddie, and Craig Williams. Jean has written reports on Oklahoma public school reform for the Citizens League of Central Oklahoma and Oklahoma 21st Century, a subsidiary of the Oklahoma State Chamber of Commerce and on out-of-school programs for the Oklahoma City Community Foundation. In 1998, the Citizens League of Central Oklahoma recognized her as Volunteer of the Year. In 2001, Warner helped the Carl Albert Center establish N.E.W. Leadership-Oklahoma, a five-day summer institute for Oklahoma undergraduate women designed to educate, inspire, and empower them to become political leaders. She served as fundraiser and coordinator of that annual institute during its first three years. In 2006, she launched the Oklahoma Women’s Network website and weblog that celebrate, promote, and empower Oklahoma women and girls through issue advocacy, coalition building, and information sharing. She is legislative chair of the recently formed Oklahoma Women’s Legislative Coalition, an alliance of women’s organizations advocating on behalf of Oklahoma women and girls. She is also an active member of the Oklahoma Commission on the Status of Women’s Advisory Committee and the League of Women Voters of Oklahoma. She is active in her church and leads mission teams to Central Kenya. She lives in Oklahoma City with her husband, Larkin, a retired Oklahoma State University Regents Professor of Economics.
Craig A. Williams (1996) graduated with a B.A. in
English and political science from Bethany College in West Virginia. While a
Carl Albert Fellow, Williams attended the ICPSR Summer Program in Quantitative
Methods at the University of Michigan and the Summer Institute in Political
Psychology at The Ohio State University. He presented papers at numerous
conferences on his research interests in congressional leadership and political
theory. During his fellowship, he also served as co-editor of three editions of
The Almanac of Oklahoma Politics
(Oklahoma Political Science Association Press) with Gary Copeland and R. Keith
Gaddie. During his participation in the APSA Congressional Fellowship Program,
Williams conducted his research on the influence of interest groups on the policymaking
process in congressional committees. After completing his dissertation in 2001,
he returned to work in the office of Congressman Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr. (R-Md.), for whom he served as an APSA fellow. Williams
then served as deputy director of policy and deputy chief of staff in Governor
Ehrlich’s office in Annapolis, Maryland. Currently, Williams is a
director of global government affairs at Amgen, a role in which he serves as
director of policy for state government affairs.
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