Dr. Antoine Jevon Banks' research interests include racial and ethnic politics, emotions, political psychology, and public opinion. His first book, Anger and Racial Politics: The Emotional Foundation of Racial Attitudes in America, published by Cambridge University Press, explores the link between emotions and racial attitudes and the consequences it has for political preferences. His forthcoming book (co-authored with Ismail White), The Anger Rule: Racial Inequality and Constraints on Black Politicians, published by Cambridge University Press, examines how Black politicians penalized for publicly expressing anger contributes to racial inequality sustaining itself in the US. He has also authored numerous journal articles, and his research has been supported by the Russell Sage Foundation and the National Science Foundation.

Alejandro (Alex) Flores is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland, College Park. His research leverages a full spectrum of (quantitative, qualitative) methods and data sources to examine how people feel they can relate to, access, receive care from, or feel understood by the government based on their past experiences with government. He integrates insights from psychology, public policy, behavioral economics, and sociology to interpret the extent to which the sequencing and purview of government interventions define the bounds of political community or act as running commentary on desired values from its members. This work articulates the process by which these prescribed codes of conduct politicize markers of group identity, challenging the notion that such patterning of rules, logics, and norms are ever politically neutral.

Such investigative interest motivates a current focus on different domains of daily life for segments of the U.S. electorate that use languages other than English, primarily Spanish-speaking Latinxs, and their navigation of the political world across linguistic environments. Ongoing and planned future projects include experiments testing the electoral consequences of campaign messaging in Spanish, assessing individual-level capacity to detect and correct misinformation when encountered in a second language, and probing modern-day variation in responsiveness to minority language groups by local government offices.

Dr. Michael Hanmer specializes in American politics and political methodology. His book, Discount Voting: Voter Registration Reforms and Their Effects (Cambridge University Press, 2009), investigates the effects of registration laws on turnout, the composition of the electorate, and party behavior in the United States. He is a co-author of Voting Technology: The Not-So-Simple Act of Casting a Ballot (Brookings Institution Press, 2008). He has also published articles on the effect of ballot style on electoral outcomes, election day registration, voting systems, the over-reporting of voting in surveys, vote-by-mail, absentee and early voting, voter identification laws, limited dependent variable models, the use of ecological inference estimators to understand split-ticket voting, mobilization, and youth voting. His current research investigates how public agencies can encourage compliance with federal civil rights laws, how mobilization influences the use of new voting methods, vote over-reporting, how international reputation influences the evaluation of political leaders, and question wording effects.

Jordan Spencer is a Ph.D. student studying American politics with a focus on racial and ethnic politics. He delves into voters' perceptions and parasocial relationships with political candidates, shedding light on the complexities of contemporary political engagement. With a dedication to rigorous research, Jordan aims to expand the boundaries of knowledge and foster critical discourse in the realms of political behavior and psychology.

Woohyeon Kim is a Ph.D. student in the Government and Politics Department at the University of Maryland. Her research interests include racial and ethnic politics, intergroup relations, and political psychology. Currently, her research focuses on interminority politics, examining the conditions that lead to cooperation or conflict among racial and ethnic minorities in the political arena.

Jessica Reese is a Ph.D. student in the Government and Politics Department at the University of Maryland. Her scholarly pursuits center on American Politics, with a specialized focus on racial and ethnic politics, political behavior, political psychology, and methodological approaches. Motivated by a desire to advance understanding in the field, she is dedicated to conducting research that sheds light on the complex dynamics of Black conservatism, aiming to enrich scholarly discourse and societal understanding alike.