Kenichi Ariga (Ph.D. expected summer 2010)
Dissertation Title: Entrenched Incumbents, Irresponsible Parties? Incumbency Advantage, Collective Responsibility, and Economic Voting.
Dissertation Committee: Robert Franzese (Chair), Allen Hicken, John Jackson, Walter Mebane
Research Interests: Comparative Democratic Politics (Elections, Parties, Legislatures, and Public Policy), Political Economy, Politics of Advanced Industrial Democracies, Quantitative Political Methodology
Curriculum Vitae
Personal Website

Jennifer L. Epley (Ph.D. expected spring 2010)
Dissertation Title: Voices of the Faithful in Contemporary Indonesia
Dissertation Committee: Ashutosh Varshney (Co-Chair), Allen Hicken (Co-Chair), Mark Tessler, Zvi Gitelman, and Webb Keane (Anthropology)
Research Interests: Comparative Politics; Public Opinion; Political Behavior; Religion; Southeast Asia; and Research Methodology (mixed methods)
Curriculum Vitae
Personal Website

G. Jiyun Kim (Ph.D. 2006)
Dissertation Title: The Nature and the Timing of Political Stabilization
Dissertation Committee: James Morrow (Chair), Robert Axelrod, Robert Franzese, Scott Page, Daniel Silverman (Economics)
Research Interests: Political Transitions, Conflict Resolution, State Failure, Political Violence, Modeling and Simulation, Large N Quant, and Knowledge / Socio-cognitive Engineering.
Curriculum Vitae
Personal Web Site

Carrie Konold (Ph.D. expected Dec. 2009)
Dissertation Title: Shari'ah and the Secular State in Senegal: Understanding Citizen Preferences for Islamic Family Law
Dissertation Committee: Mark Tessler (Co-Chair), Ted Brader (Co-Chair), Mamadou Diouf (Columbia), Jennifer Widner (Princeton)
Research & Teaching Interests: Comparative Politics; Public Opinion; Comparative Religion-State Relations; Politics of the Contemporary Muslim World; African and Middle Eastern Politics; Media and Political Communication; Religion and Politics; Corruption; Social Networks; Global Development; Mixed Method Research
Personal Web Site

Yoshikuni Ono (Ph.D. expected May 2010)
Dissertation Title: Portfolio Allocation as Leadership Strategy: Bargaining among and within Parties
Dissertation Committee: Arthur Lupia (Chair), William R. Clark, Anna Grzymala-Busse, Orit Kedar (MIT), Daisuke Nakajima (Economics)
Research Interests: Japanese politics, parliamentary democracy, coalition formation, political parties, intra-party politics, delegation of power, formal modeling
Curriculum Vitae
Personal Web Site

Leanne Powner (Ph.D. August 2008)
Current Position: Visiting Assistant Professor, American University (Washington, D.C.)
Dissertation Title: Consensus, Capacity, and The Choice to Cooperate
Dissertation Committee: Jim Morrow (Chair), Rob Franzese, Jana von Stein, Dario Gaggio (UM History)
Research Interests: International cooperation and institutions, European Union, Western Europe, developed democracy
Curriculum Vitae
Personal Web Site

Olesya Tkacheva (Ph.D. expected Spring 2009)
Dissertation Title: "Rational Actors and Transient Institutions: Essays on Consequences of Electoral Reform in Russia"
Dissertation Committee: Jan Svejnar (Co-chair, UM Schools of Business and Public Policy), William Zimmerman (Co-chair), John Jackson, Allen Hicken, Sheldon Danziger (UM School of Public Policy)
Research Interests: Political economy, Federalism, Party politics
Curriculum Vitae
Personal Web Site