Political Science

Kevin DeLuca

Assistant Professor of Political Science

Kevin DeLuca is an Assistant Professor of Political Science and resident fellow at the Institution for Social and Policy Studies. His research interests include political economy and political representation, with a focus on elections, election laws, and the role of the media in the political process.

Danil Dmitriev

Postdoctoral Associate

Danil Dmitriev is a Postdoctoral Associate with the Democratic Innovations program at Yale’s Institution for Social and Policy Studies. He received a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, San Diego in 2023. His research interests lie in microeconomic theory, particularly in the areas of political economy, organizational economics, and social learning.

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.

Sarina Fereydooni

ISPS Director's Fellow 2025

Sarina Fereydooni is a junior in Ezra Stiles College on the pre-law track majoring in intensive Political Science and pursuing a Global Health Certificate. Her research focuses on accessibility barriers to federally funded social safety net programs and their impact on public health outcomes. On campus, she serves as a Project Leader for the Yale Undergraduate Legal Aid Association, works with the Yale Law School Lowenstein Project, and is part of a Yale School of Public Health research team dedicated to training refugees as community healthcare workers.

Zainab Firdausi

ISPS Graduate Policy Fellow 2025

Zainab Firdausi is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Theory. She is currently writing her dissertation which investigates plural conceptions of political legitimacy of the administrative state. A strong believer of the need to interact policy with theory, her research interests span democratic theory, economic inequality, modern US history, and legal history. Through ISPS, Zainab seeks to study the quality of democratic participation in administrative policymaking.

Jiawei Fu

Postdoctoral Associate

Jiawei Fu is a postdoctoral associate in the Institution for Social and Policy Studies, collaborating with Donald Green (Columbia University) and Alan Gerber on political methodology. He received his Ph.D. from New York University and will be entering the job market for the 2024-25 academic year.

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.

Allison Harris

Assistant Professor of Political Science

Allison P. Harris is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Yale University and a Resident Faculty Fellow at the Institution of Social and Policy Studies. She conducts research in American politics with a specialization in law and courts. Professor Harris’ current research agenda investigates the ways in which institutional change affects disparities in institutional outcomes, specifically within the criminal legal system.

Melody Huang

Assistant Professor of Political Science and Statistics & Data Science

Melody Huang is an assistant professor of political science and statistics & data science. Her research sits at the intersection of statistics and political science. Her work focuses on developing robust statistical methods to credibly estimate causal effects under real-world complications.