Professors EVELYNE HUBER and JOHN STEPHENS received two of the three Guggenheims that were awarded to political scientists this year. Guggenheim Fellows are appointed on the basis of stellar achievement and exceptional promise for continued accomplishment. One of the hallmarks of the Guggenheim Fellowship program is the diversity of its Fellows. The ages of this year's Fellows range from twenty-nine to seventy; their residences span the world, from Waipahu, Hawaii, to New York City and from Toronto to Glasgow; and their Fellowship projects will carry them to every continent.

The department is pleased to announce the availability of postdoctoral research positions for the 2010 Carolina Postdoctoral Program for Faculty Diversity.  This program was created in order to serve two
very important functions at Carolina.  The first function is to attract postdoctoral fellows from underrepresented groups to Carolina to prepare them for tenure-track faculty positions.  The second function is to serve as a means for increasing faculty diversity within the University community. To read the full story, please click here.

Professors GARY MARKS and LIESBET HOOGHE received a European Research Council Advanced Grant for their project on The Causes and Consequences of Multilevel Governance.  These multi-year grants are given to encourage and support excellent, innovative investigator-initiated research projects by leading advanced investigators across the EU Member States and Associated Countries.

The department has added new faculy, including Frank Baumgartner, Anna Bassi, Xi Chen, Sarah Treul, and Justin Gross.

FRANK BAUMGARTNER joins the department as the first holder of the Richard J. Richardson Distinguished Professorship. Dick Richardson retired in 2000 after serving Carolina for a long generation, first and foremost as an award-winning Political Science professor, but also as department chair and as University provost from 1996 until retirement. Thousands of students became hooked on politics after enrolling in Richardson’s hyper-popular Introduction to American Government, and often considered it the most popular course in the entire Carolina curriculum. Baumgartner understands that he has a legacy attached to his professorship, and he is well prepared to protect it. At UNC, he teaches courses on public policy, agenda-setting, interest groups, lobbying, and other topics at levels ranging from first-year seminars to upper-level undergraduate to graduate. His courses typically focus on US national politics, but they can also have significant European content.

ANNA BASSI joins the department as an assistant professor. She grew up in Firenze (Florence), Italy, where she received a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of Firenze and a master’s degree in economics from Bocconi University. She received a PhD in economics and management from Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa, Italy in 2006 and she is expected to obtain a second PhD, this one in Politics from New York University in Spring 2010. Her research focuses on government and coalition formation. She analyzes the formation of a political coalition as a bargaining game among parties or political agents who aim to maximize political benefits such as cabinet portfolios, pork barrels and perks. Bassi also studies the voting behavior of small and large groups in laboratory experiments and explains why voters are influenced by the identity of the groups, especially when they are not well informed about the different candidates or alternatives.

XI CHEN joins the department as an assistant professor specializing in comparative politics. He received his L.L.B. from East China University of Politics and Law, and an M.Phil. from Beijing University before going on to earn an M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University. He then worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University for a year. Prior to joining the faculty at UNC, he was an assistant professor at Louisana State University. His research interests include social movements, democratization, and state-society relations in the context of authoritarianism, and he is currently completing a book on social protest in China. In his spare time he enjoys tennis, ping pong, and Taichi.

JUSTIN GROSS will join the faculty in January 2010 as an assistant professor specializing in political methodology. He earned his A.B. in Latin American Studies from Brown University in 1995 and then pursued an M.S. in Mathematics from Salem State College (2004), an M.S. in Statistics (2006) and an M.Phil. in Public Policy and Management (2007) from Carnegie Mellon.

SARAH TREUL joins the department as a lecturer and an undergraduate advisor. Sarah earned her B.A. in political science and psychology from Wellesley College in 2003, and her M.A. in 2008 and Ph.D. in 2009 in political science from the University of Minnesota. Sarah's research interests include political institutions, representation, and campaigns and elections. Her work focuses on the U.S. Congress, the Supreme Court, and the separation of powers system.

DEIL WRIGHT, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, passed away on June 30, 2009, after a brief illness. A prolific researcher and writer, he authored many books, including three editions of Understanding Intergovernmental Relations, and more than 100 published articles. To read more about his work and legacy, please go to http://www.sog.unc.edu/uncmpa/news/DeilWright.php

JAMES A. STIMSON, Raymond Dawson Bicentennial Distinguished Professor of Political Science, is the 2009 recipient of the Society for Political Methodology's Career Achievement Award.   This award recognizes scholars who have made intellectual contributions that have given the field new ideas and new tools, while, at the same time, they have given the field sustaining institutions. Stimson led a major intellectual conceptualization of the field with his work on time-series and particularly on the analysis of pooled time-series and cross-sectional data and designs. 

In time for the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution, Professor LARS SCHOULTZ has published a study of the relationship between the U.S. and Cuba in the 20th and early 21st centuries. The book, entitled That Infernal Little Cuban Republic: The United States and the Cuban Revolution, received a star review from Publisher's Weekly. Click here to read the full review.

Professor JONATHAN HARTLYN has been named the Kenneth J. Reckford Distinguished Professor and the new Senior Assistant Dean for the Social Sciences and International Programs in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Associate Professor ANDREW REYNOLDS has been named the new Chair of the Curriculum of International and Area Studies.

Associate Professor GEORG VANBERG has been named the new Director of Graduate Studies.

Associate Professor MARK CRESCENZI has been named the new Associate Chair of the Department.

Associate Professor TERRY SULLIVAN has received a W. Glenn Campbell National Fellowhip to work at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

Assistant Professor JASON ROBERTS won the Patrick J. Fett Award for the Best Paper on the Scientific Study of Congress and the Presidency at the 2009 Midwest Political Science Association Annual Meeting.

Associate Professor LAYNA MOSLEY presented a paper at APSA 2008 entitled "Trade and Labor Rights: A Panel Study," co-authored with Brian Greenhill and Aseem Prakash. The paper was awarded the APSA Labor Project's Best Paper Award.

Associate Professor MILADA ANNA VACHUDOVA has won the Hettleman Award for Artistic and Scholarly Achievements by Young Faculty.

Associate Professor MARK CRESCENZI has won the Tanner award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching.

The Department Announces the Thomas M. Uhlman Graduate Fund in Political Science, providing a major boost to the graduate program.

The Department congratulates NGETA KABIRI, who received his PhD in our Department in 2007, for winning the 2009 Best Dissertation Award from the Science, Technology and Environmental Politics Section of the American Political Science Association. Dr. Kabiri's dissertation is entitled: Global Environmental Governance and Community-Based Conservation in Kenya and Tanzania.

Graduate student HOLLIE MANN received an American Association of University Women dissertation fellowship for the 2009-2010 year.

Graduate student PATRICK WOHLFARTH received a National Science Foundation Dissertation Improvement Grant for 2009-2010.