Team directory
Team directory
Becca Levy, Professor of Public Health (Social and Behavioral Sciences) and Psychology; Affiliated Faculty, Yale Institute for Global Health
Dr. Levy’s research explores psychosocial factors that influence older individuals’ cognitive and physical functioning, as well as their longevity. She is credited with creating a field of study that focuses on how positive and negative age stereotypes, which are assimilated from the culture, can have beneficial and adverse effects, respectively, on the health of older individuals.Her studies have been conducted by longitudinal, experimental, and cross-cultural methods.
Bruce Liang, ISPS Graduate Policy Fellow, 2026
Bruce Liang is a PhD student in Sociology. His main research interest concerns examining the role of culture in facilitating social reproduction—and conversely, social mobility—with a focus on these mechanisms in educational institutions. He uses both quantitative and qualitative methods. Bruce’s current project draws on 70 in-depth interviews with students at a large research university to explore class-based disparities in how students engage with their professors. He holds an Honors Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in Sociology from the University of Toronto.
Zachary Liscow, Professor of Law
Zachary Liscow is Professor of Law at Yale Law School. His wide-ranging work in law and economics currently covers tax policy, benefit-cost analysis, and infrastructure construction costs. He is particularly interested in developing cost-effective policies to address inequality and understanding what drives the high costs of building U.S. infrastructure. He has also worked in a variety of other areas, including environmental policy and empirical legal studies.
Mackenzie Lockhart, External Postdoctoral Associate
Mackenzie Lockhart is an external 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.
Alexander Love, Postdoctoral Associate
Alexander Love is a Democratic Innovations postdoctoral associate at Yale’s Institution for Social and Policy Studies (ISPS). He earned his Ph.D. from the Department of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Previously, he earned his M.A. in political science from UNC and his B.A. in public policy and data analytics from William & Mary.
Itay Machtei, Postdoctoral Associate
Itay Machtei is a postdoctoral associate with the Consortium on the American Political Economy (CAPE) based at the ISPS’s American Political Economy eXchange (APEX) program. He completed his Ph.D. in political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2025. His research agenda broadly focuses on the social and distributive outcomes of state and market institutions and is organized around two complementary strands.
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.
Isobel McClure, ISPS Director's Fellow, 2026
Isobel McClure is a sophomore at Yale College, pursuing a major in English literature, with a concentration in French. She is interested in campaign finance practices and regulation, as well as the intersection between state and federal government. Her coursework also includes German language and political science studies. Outside of the classroom, Isobel covers University policy and finances as a reporter at the Yale Daily News. She currently serves as the newspaper’s head copy editor.
Tracey Meares, Walton Hale Hamilton Professor of Law and Founding Director of The Justice Collaboratory
Tracey L. Meares is the Walton Hale Hamilton Professor and a Founding Director of the Justice Collaboratory at Yale Law School. Before joining the faculty at Yale, she was a professor at the University of Chicago Law School from 1995 to 2007, serving as Max Pam Professor and Director of the Center for Studies in Criminal Justice. She was the first African American woman to be granted tenure at both law schools.