Governance & Democratic Process

Amir Fairdosi

Lecturer in Political Science, Associate Research Scholar at the Center for the Study of American Politics

Amir Shawn Fairdosi is a Lecturer in Political Science and an Associate Research Scholar at the Center for the Study of American Politics. He teaches classes on American politics, legislative procedure, and political socialization. His current research examines how political institutions influence political attitudes and behavior.

Alan Gerber

Sterling Professor of Political Science

Alan Gerber is Sterling Professor of Political Science, director of the Institution for Social and Policy Studies, and professor of economics and of and statistics and data science at Yale University. He also has affiliations in the Yale School of Public Health and the Jackson School of Global Affairs. Previously he was appointed the Faculty of Arts and Sciences divisional director for the social sciences and became the inaugural FAS dean of social science, serving in this role from 2014 to 2021.

Jacob S. Hacker

Stanley B. Resor Professor of Political Science

Jacob S. Hacker is Stanley Resor Professor of Political Science, Co-Director of the Ludwig Program in Public Sector Leadership at Yale Law School, and a resident fellow of the Institution for Social and Policy Studies at Yale University.

Mackenzie Lockhart

Postdoctoral Associate

Mackenzie Lockhart is a Postdoctoral Associate with the Democratic Innovations program at Yale’s Institution for Social and Policy Studies. He received a Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, San Diego in 2023. His research focuses on elections, representation, and public opinion with particular focus on how voters behave in American elections and consequences for representation.

Isabela Mares

Arnold Wolfers Professor of Political Science

Isabela Mares is the Arnold Wolfers Professor of Political Science and the Director of the European Union Center at Yale. She specializes in the comparative politics of Europe. Professor Mares has written extensively on labor market and social policy reforms, the political economy of taxation, electoral clientelism, reforms limiting electoral corruption. Her current research examines the political responses to antiparliamentarism in both contemporary and historical settings.

David Mayhew

Sterling Professor of Political Science, Emeritus

David Mayhew is Sterling Professor Emeritus of Political Science.

Mellissa Meisels

Postdoctoral Associate

Mellissa Meisels is a postdoctoral associate in ISPS’s Center for the Study of American Politics. In 2025, she will join Yale’s Department of Political Science as an assistant professor. She earned her Ph.D. from the Department of Political Science at Vanderbilt University, where she was affiliated with the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions. Previously, I was a Democracy Center Visiting Scholar at the University of Rochester and earned her B.A.

Shir Raviv

External Postdoctoral Associate (Columbia University)

Shir Raviv is a political scientist who studies the politics of using AI in public policy implementation. She employs experimental methods to investigate how citizens perceive and react to the use of data-driven algorithms in high-stakes domains such as criminal justice, policing, welfare, and education. She also examines how their views change after receiving information or having personal experience with the technology. Before joining Columbia University in September 2023, Dr. Raviv earned her Ph.D. and M.A.

Milan Svolik

Professor of Political Science

Milan Svolik is a professor of political science at Yale University. His research and teaching focus on comparative politics, political economy, and formal political theory.

He has authored and co-authored articles on the politics of authoritarian regimes and democratization in leading political science journals, including the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, and the Journal of Politics.

Klaudia Wegschaider

Postdoctoral Associate

Klaudia Wegschaider joins the Institution for Social and Policy Studies as a Democratic Innovations postdoctoral associate. Her work focuses on the causes and consequences of electoral reforms, especially enfranchisement. Methodologically, she is primarily a qualitative researcher and combines case studies with quantitative and experimental methods.