Kohut Research Fellows

The Kohut Fellowship honors the memory of Andrew Kohut and his numerous contributions to the science and art of survey research. Read more about Andrew and his work.

Kohut Fellows will (1) engage in their own original public opinion-focused research project using data from the Roper Center archives; (2) learn about the methods and techniques of survey research and other forms of public opinion research, analysis, and dissemination; and (3) participate in Roper Center supervised projects at a level appropriate to their abilities, training and educational goals (10 hours/week). Kohut Fellows will receive a $5,000 stipend for the summer.

Interested in applying for the Kohut Fellowship? Visit this page for details.

2024 Kohut Fellows

Samuel Liu

Samuel Liu is a Ph.D. candidate in the Government Department at Cornell University. His research interests include interstate signaling in international relations, military coercion, and East Asia security. His research examines the logic of great powers’ use of coercion by focusing on the downstream effects of China’s military, economic, and diplomatic coercion in Taiwan. His dissertation combines insights from the fields of international security and psychology, and argues that failures in coercive diplomacy are a result of communication gaps between senders and receivers of costly signals across the Taiwan strait. As a Kohut Fellow, Samuel will investigate the determinants of Hong Kong’s attitudes toward the sovereignty transfer to China in 1997.

Alejandro Jose Ramos

Alejandro J. Ramos is an MPA candidate at Cornell University’s Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy, where he is also a Brooks Public Policy Fellow. As the founder and director of the Ramos Research Institute, Alejandro specializes in education policy. His work explores the intersection of public policy and educational outcomes, aiming to foster equitable access to quality education. Alejandro's passion for politics and public policy fuels his research and his commitment to public service. As a newly appointed Kohut Fellow at the Roper Center, his project will analyze Hispanic voting trends in U.S. presidential elections, employing the Roper Center archives to deepen insights into survey methodology and public opinion. Alejandro looks forward to contributing to the center's mission of advancing the understanding of public opinion and its impact on democracy.

Rocio Salas-Lewin

Rocío Salas-Lewin is a PhD student in Comparative Politics at Cornell University's Department of Government. Her research interests include social movements, electoral behavior, populism, and public opinion in Latin America and beyond. Her current projects explore the interaction between contentious and institutional political participation. She studies why individuals react radically differently –protesting, voting populist, and electorally abstaining– under a representation crisis. She is also interested in the impact of social movements on public opinion and elections. Rocío holds a MSc in Political Science and Political Economy from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and a BA in Sociology from Universidad de Chile.

Georgy K. Tarasenko

Georgy K. Tarasenko is a PhD student in Government at Cornell University with a focus on Comparative Politics. His research interests span various fields including political economy, cliometrics, political psychology, and authoritarian politics. He is particularly interested in exploring historical legacies and junctures, the psychology of public opinion in non-democratic regimes, and comparative post-communist development. Georgy applies a diverse range of computational methods of statistics, econometrics and machine learning to survey and field experiments, and to causal inference in qualitative research. As a Kohut Fellow, he is investigating the impact of post-Soviet market reforms in the 1990s on the rise of nationalism and anti-US sentiment in Russia. His research uses archival data from the Roper Center to model subnational estimates of attitudes. Georgy holds a Master's degree in Sociology and a Bachelor's degree in Political Science with a minor in Data Science from HSE University. 

2023 Kohut Fellows

Hyein Yang

Hyein Yang is a Ph.D. student in the Government Department at Cornell. Her research interests include the American presidency, federalism, the checks and balances system, and public opinion. Her current research projects explore how state-level political actors—state attorneys general and governors—can play a pivotal role in constraining presidential power within the vertical system of checks and balances. Her Kohut Fellowship project will examine how the federal government's economic assistance after the disasters affects public attitudes toward the president and the expansion of the federal government. In particular, this project investigates federal emergency relief in the aftermath of the Dust Bowl in the 1930s and its impact on public attitudes and participation. Read her research piece "The Distribution of Federal Relief and Public Support for the President in the 1930s" here.

Stephanie Belina

Stephanie Belina is a Ph.D. student in the Communication Department at Cornell University and a member of the Virtual Embodiment Lab. Her research interests include technology use, social support, and health communication. Stephanie is currently researching social virtual reality with clinical applications. She holds a master's from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a bachelor's from the University of Florida. Her Kohut Fellowship project will explore public opinions around the relationship between technology and health within the health polling in the iPoll database.

Harkirat Sangha

Harkirat Sangha is a rising senior in the Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy who will be pursuing her Masters of Health Administration at Cornell through the 5-year BS/MHA accelerated program. She enjoys learning about the intersection of economics, demography, and healthcare. As a Kohut fellow, Harkirat will investigate the relationship between general reproductive health knowledge and beliefs on abortion amongst adults in the United States conditional on political party preference.

2022 Kohut Fellows

Aaron Childree

Aaron Childree is a Ph.D. student majoring in American Politics and minoring in Comparative Politics with a special minor in Methodology. His research interests include executive politics, democratic institutions, and the domestic politics of foreign policy. Aaron holds a Bachelor of Arts from Rollins College and a Master of Public Policy from Georgia State University. During his time at Georgia State, he also served as a Public Finance Fellow at the University’s Center for State and Local Finance. Read Aaron's Kohut research piece entitled Public Opinion and the Vietnam War: How Race, Gender, and Partisanship Affect Views Toward Military Conflicts.

Yamile Guibert

Yamile Guibert is a Ph.D. candidate in Government from Cornell University. She holds an MA in Government from the same university. Previously, she received a BA and Licentiate from the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru (PUCP). She is interested in political accountability, corruption, voting behavior, and party politics, with a regional focus in Latin America. 

Joseph Lasky

Joseph Lasky is a PhD student in the Department of Government. He studies comparative politics and specializes in identity, ethnic politics, political violence, and the intergenerational transmission of trauma. His current projects focus on how identity shapes engagement with traditional forums of dispute resolution in Benin and the attitudinal and identity legacies of the Hidden War in Cameroon. His Kohut Fellowship project addresses national identity formation in West Africa at the dawn of independence. Read his work here entitled "The Five-Country Survey: Roper’s Collection Offers a Look at West African Attitudes in the 1960s".

Andreas Psahos

Andreas Psahos is a rising junior in the Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy. He currently works on faculty-led research projects exploring the gender-wage gap among young STEM graduates and assessing the economic impact of pandemic-era lockdowns in Latin America and the Caribbean. As a Kohut Fellow, Andreas will study disparities in Internet access in the COVID age, as well as the effectiveness of digital public health messaging across race and class in the United States. Read his work here entitled "Misinformation, Vaccination, and Social Media Use Across the Political Aisle".

2021 Kohut Fellows

Jacob Harris

Jacob is a Ph.D. student in the Government Department at Cornell University. Jacob’s research interests broadly center around American politics, emphasizing criminal justice policy, public opinion, and political psychology. He has published his work on public opinion and police officers in the Journal of Criminal Justice. Another project which examines the intersections between religion, racial prejudice, and punitive sentiment toward criminals is currently under review. Jacob’s primary research motivation is understanding the political consequences of rural prison proliferation. In particular, Jacob is interested in how rural prison proliferation has entrenched punitive crime policy in the United States and contributed to the perpetuation of mass incarceration. Jacob enjoys a good book during his free time, playing tennis, and spending time with his wife and daughter.

Genevieve Richards

Genevieve Richards is a junior, majoring in Government and minoring in Information Science. She is interested in the intersection of politics and technology and real-world applications for people. On campus, she is also an officer for the Alpha Phi Omega service fraternity, a policy analyst for the Roosevelt Institute, and a member of a co-op. In her free time, she enjoys fostering kittens.

Emily Jackson

Emily is a Ph.D. student in comparative politics in the Department of Government at Cornell. Her research focuses on social movements and gender in Latin America and the US, with a particular focus on framing tactics and intra-movement dynamics. Her Kohut Fellowship project will analyze the evolution of public opinion on gender and reproductive politics in Argentina from the mid-twentieth century to today.

Vincent Mauro

Vincent Mauro is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Government at Cornell University. He studies comparative politics and the politics of inequality. His book project, "Party Systems and Democratic Redistribution," investigates how party systems shape broader paths of social reform, redistribution, and economic inequality in Latin America and beyond. He also has a related project on understanding the political behavior of economic elites, particularly concerning issues such as crime and insecurity, redistribution, and democracy. His work has been published or is forthcoming in Comparative Politics and Latin American Research Review. 

 

2020 Kohut Fellows

Kwelina Thompson

Kwelina Thompson is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at Cornell University. She specializes in U.S. economic history with a particular focus on the influence of technology on work processes and gender stratification. Her research explores the ways in which institutions of higher education, government policies, and professional organizations have transformed labor market outcomes in the post-World War II era. Click here to read her work on women and polling.

 

Colin Cepuran

Colin Cepuran is a Ph.D. candidate in the Government Department of Cornell University, where he studies the role of policy in political attitude and identity formation. His dissertation examines how DACA shaped the political attitudes and racial/ethnic identities of the Dreamers. More broadly, his work sits at the intersection of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics, Policy Studies, and American Political Development. Prior to studying at Cornell, he worked in local politics.  He has consulted for multiple local races in Southwestern Michigan and managed a State Representative's re-election campaign. Click here to read his work on the support for fixing undemocratic institutions. 

Bryan Huang

Bryan Huang is a Cornell junior pursuing a double major in Government and Information Science, with a concentration in Data Science. He is interested in using data-driven research to examine what factors affect public opinion as well as how electoral systems shape political outcomes. His Kohut Fellowship research project explores whether the degree of public concern related to climate change is correlated with the location of natural disasters in the U.S. over the past twenty years.

 

2019 Kohut Fellows

Nina Obermeier

Nina is a third-year PhD student in the Department of Government at Cornell University. Her research focuses on public opinion toward different aspects of international economic integration and toward global governance. Prior to starting her PhD studies, Nina has worked at a trade association in Brussels and at the University of Oxford. To read Obermeier's issue brief on "Attitudes Toward the U.S. in Cold War West Germany," click here

George Spisak

George is a doctoral student in Development Sociology. His dissertation work focuses on the changing relations of sovereignty that are embodied in three distinct areas: maritime piracy, intellectual property law, and international hazardous waste disposal. George's work for the Kohut Fellowship examined American public opinion about important problems and the effect this had on voter participation. Before graduate school, George worked as a commodities broker and later coordinated annual collection of faculty data for Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. 

2018 Kohut Fellows

Jessica Zarkin Notni

Jessica is a third-year PhD student in Comparative Politics at the Cornell Government Department. Her research focuses on democratic development, insecurity, policing, public opinion, and political behavior in Latin America. Before coming to Cornell, she was a data analyst at Data4, a Mexican firm that works to make data accessible to more people and provides data solutions to an array of clients including media outlets, NGOs, and government branches. Click here to read her Kohut Fellowship project, which focuses on support for policies that go against individual interests in a Latin American context.

Evelyn Shan

Evelyn is a junior studying Government and History, with a minor in Education. On campus, she is also involved in Chinese Bible Study, AIESEC Cornell, and International Justice Mission. Click here to read her Kohut Fellowship research project, which explores mass attitudes toward immigration in America.

2017 Kohut Fellows

José Tomás Sánchez Gómez

José Sánchez Gómez is a second-year PhD student in the Government Department at Cornell University. His research interest is on comparative politics of Latin America. He focuses on contentious politics and constitutional change, social movements and party politics. In 2015, he finished his Master of Public Administration at CIPA, Cornell. Before coming to Cornell, he served as a public official in the Civil Service Department of Paraguay, and worked for NGOs in programs for social and democratic development. Click here to read his Kohut Fellowship research project, which focuses on economic sentiments and major political changes in Chile between 1966 and 2016.

Claire Liu

Claire Liu is a rising junior pursuing a double major in Government and independent study, focused on persuasion and propaganda through the Arts and Sciences College Scholar program, and a minor in French. She is fascinated by topics of modern mass misinformation, campaign messaging and the roles and responsibilities assigned to social networks and corporations by the American public. Click here to read her Kohut Fellowship research project which explores the “fake news” phenomenon in the 2016 presidential election.