Riley Messer

Biography

Riley Messer was born and raised in a small town outside of Kansas City, Missouri, and studied Political Science at Mizzou. During her undergraduate career, she was a part of both the Society of Fellows and Kinder Scholars programs, and contributed to the fourth volume of the Kinder Institute’s Journal on Constitutional Democracy with an essay titled, “Defining Corruption in the Founding Era and the Modern Era.” Riley also obtained an M.A. in Atlantic History and Politics at the Kinder Institute in 2021, and after completing that, she started work as a researcher for a government accountability organization, where she uses FOIA and state public records requests to combat corruption and advance transparency.