Directory

More than anything, the Kinder Institute is a vibrant, diverse community of scholars who share not only an academic interest in rigorously unpacking the complex history of constitutional democracy in the U.S. and around the globe but also a commitment to collective inquiry. Both in the classroom and beyond it, our undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty learn both alongside and from one another, and they do so with the kind of civility and interdisciplinary curiosity that is essential to generating innovative scholarship and engaging in productive discourse.

You can contact the Kinder Institute front desk with questions at, (573) 882-3330. For questions specifically regarding undergraduate programs, contact Dr. Thomas Kane, Director of Undergraduate Studies, at KaneTC@missouri.edu.

Use the tabs below to meet the people who make up the Kinder Institute.

Ruth Adesanya

Ruth Adesanya

Atlantic History M.A. Cohort,

Ruth Adesanya graduated from the University of Warwick with a B.A. in History, where she mainly focused on the ‘Black Atlantic’, British imperialism, and Migration History. During her time as an undergraduate, Ruth also had the opportunity to study abroad at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Outside her studies, Ruth enjoys drawing, painting and travelling to explore different countries and cultures.

Fares Akremi

Fares Akremi

Alumni Council,

Scholar (2015), Certificate in American Constitutional Democracy
Fares grew up on a farm near Columbia, Missouri, and studied Geography and Political Science at Mizzou. He was a Kinder Scholar during the inaugural year of the Washington, D.C. program. After Mizzou, Fares studied law at Stanford and has since worked as an associate at a law firm in DC and as a law clerk to judges on federal trial and appellate courts in Chicago and D.C.

Mason Andrews

Mason Andrews

Undergraduate Fellows,

Mason Andrews is a third-year student from St. Louis, Missouri, who is majoring in Economics and History with a minor in Creative Writing. A former Discovery Fellow, Mason serves as the Treasurer of the Mizzou Undergraduate Society of History and is currently working on his honors thesis which seeks to understand the cultural significance of social banditry during the so-called Golden Age of Hijacking. After he graduates, Mason intends to pursue a graduate degree in history. In addition to his studies, Mason spends his time reading horror comics and listening to the ramblings of painter and jazz musician John Lurie.

Alan Atterbury

Alan Atterbury

Advisory Board,

Alan L. Atterbury received his B.A. in Economics from the University of Missouri and his J.D. from the University of Missouri School of Law. He served as an active-duty Army officer, after which he acted as Attorney Advisor to Federal Power Commission Vice-Chairman Pinkroy C. Walker, former Dean of the MU School of Business and practiced law as a partner at Morrison & Hecker (now Stinson, Leonard, Street). Mr. Atterbury was co-founder and founding CEO of Midland Loan Services (MLS), a national real estate financial services company based in Overland Park, KS. MLS, now owned by PNC Financial Services, is currently the nation’s second-largest commercial real estate loan servicer with approximately $400 billion of loans under management. Mr. Atterbury continues to be active in Midland Properties, Inc., a local investment management company. He has served as a board member at the Harry S. Truman Library Institute, the Midwest Research Institute, and the Kansas City Missouri Police Foundation, and as chair of the UMKC Trustees and UMKC Foundation boards. He is married to Mary Pearson Atterbury, a graduate of the MU School of Education, and they have three children: Jennifer, Andrew, and David.

Robert G. Bailey

Robert G. Bailey

Affiliated Faculty,

Assistant Dean Emeritus, MU School of Law, baileyr@missouri.edu
Bob Bailey is a 1968 graduate of Marist College and a 1979 graduate of the University of Missouri -Columbia School of Law, where he commenced his career after graduation. In 1983, Prof. Bailey became the City of Columbia’s Municipal Judge, serving for four years before returning to the MU Law School full time in 1987 as the Assistant Dean and Senior Fellow. Prof. Bailey is also Vice President of the National Academy of Arbitrators and has an active labor and sports arbitration practice. In addition, he is a Commissioner for the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniformed State Laws (NCCUSL), and he serves on the Uniform Athlete Agent Act and the Veterans Court Act drafting committees. Prof. Bailey is actively involved in campus committee work and chairs the mid-month Institutional Review Board (IRB), and he has a long history of community services. Presently, he chairs Boone County Family Resources, an agency providing services to 1,300 developmentally disabled citizens, and in the past, he has chaired the Family Health Center, the Central Missouri Food Bank, and the Regional Aids Inter-Faith Network (RAIN). He served as Director of the Law School’s nationally renowned Center for Dispute Resolution from 2005-2013, and he teaches Arbitration, a Lawyering Seminar, a first-year Lawyering class, and a Freshman Interest Group (FIG). Prof. Bailey is married to Sharon, and they have two daughters and four grandchildren.

Jackson Bailey

Jackson Bailey

Originally from Willow Springs, Missouri, Jackson Bailey is a second-year sophomore double-majoring in Constitutional Democracy (Law & Institutions) and Political Science (American Politics/Public Policy), with a minor in History. During his short-time at the University of Missouri, Jackson has already engaged in multiple extracurricular and experiential activities, including the Kinder Institute Society of Fellows and legislative internships in both Jefferson City and Washington, D.C. Jackson is also an ambassador to the College of Arts and Science, and while away from his studies, he enjoys reading, spending time with family, and making new connections within the Mizzou community. Jackson ultimately wishes to attend the University of Missouri School of Law and pursue a career in constitutional law or professional lobbying.

Lauren Bayne

Lauren Bayne

Lauren Bayne is a rising senior from Chesterfield, Missouri, majoring in Elementary Education and Political Science. Her academic interests are the tangible effects of legislation and political initiatives on P-12 learning and providing engaging Critical social studies education to K-5 students. She prefers to spend time in the elementary school classroom, learning from her first and fifth graders, but on Mizzou’s campus she can be found planning countless events and programs through her roles as Chair of Programming for the Panhellenic Accessibility Committee, the Director of Programming for ASUM, and Events Director for her sorority. Following graduation, Lauren is ecstatic to teach (hopefully) fourth and fifth graders with eventual plans to go into education policy so she can continue to serve children.

Jean Becker

Jean Becker

Advisory Board,

Jean Becker was chief of staff for George H.W. Bush from March 1, 1994, until his death on November 30, 2018. She supervised his office operations in both Houston, Texas, and Kennebunkport, Maine, overseeing such events as the opening of the George Bush Presidential Library Center in 1997 and the commissioning of the USS George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier in January 2009 and coordinating his special projects such as the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund. She took a leave of absence in 1999 to edit and research, All the Best, George Bush; My Life in Letters and Other Writings.

Previously, Ms. Becker served as deputy press secretary to First Lady Barbara Bush from 1989 to 1992.  After the 1992 election, she moved to Houston to help Mrs. Bush with the editing and research of her autobiography, Barbara Bush, A Memoir.  She later assisted Mrs. Bush with a follow-up book, Reflections, published in 2003.

Before joining the Bush White House staff in 1989, Ms. Becker was a newspaper reporter for 10 years, including a four-year stint at USA TODAY, where her duties included covering the 1988 presidential election and serving as a Page One editor.

Ms. Becker grew up on a family farm in Martinsburg, Missouri, and was valedictorian of her country high school.  She graduated from the University of Missouri in 1978 with a bachelor’s in journalism and a bachelor’s in arts with a major in political science. She was recognized as an outstanding alumnus by the University of Missouri in 2017.

She is a member of the board of directors for Points of Light, the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy, and the George and Barbara Bush Foundation. She also is a member of the advisory board of The George Bush Presidential Library Center and The George Bush School of Government and Public Service. Her book about Mrs. Bush, Pearls of Wisdom, was a New York Times best-seller when it was released on March 3, 2020. She is working on a second book about President Bush’s post presidency, to be published in 2021.

Thomas Bennett

Thomas Bennett

Kinder Institute Faculty,

Kinder Institute Associate Professor of Constitutional Democracy, MU Law Associate Professor and Wall Family Fellow, thomas.bennett@missouri.edu
Thomas Bennett is Associate Professor of Constitutional Democracy at the Kinder Institute and Associate Professor and Wall Family Fellow at MU’s School of Law, where he teaches constitutional law and civil procedure. His research focuses on how complex civil litigation strains the relationship between state and federal courts and impacts the separation of powers. Professor Bennett’s scholarship has appeared or will appear in the NYU Law Review, the Cornell Law Review, and the Minnesota Law Review. Before joining the faculty in 2020, he was a Furman Academic Fellow at NYU School of Law and spent four years in private practice litigating appeals, complex civil cases, and administrative matters. Professor Bennett is also a former law clerk to the Honorable Gerard E. Lynch of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and the Honorable Jesse M. Furman of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. He holds a JD magna cum laude from NYU School of Law and a BA with honors from Swarthmore College.

Alex Bernier

Alex Bernier

Atlantic History M.A. Cohort,

From St. Louis, Missouri, Alex Bernier graduated from Mizzou with B.A.s in Political Science, History, and Constitutional Democracy, along with a minor in Ancient Mediterranean Studies. His primary academic focus has been on the formation, development, and impact of government regimes, with a specific emphasis on the Haudenosaunee Confederacy of the American Northeast and its influence on the U.S. Constitution. Alex plans to attend law school after completing the M.A. program. Outside of academics, he spends his time hiking, biking, or playing ultimate frisbee with the Mizzou club team.

Gwen Blevins

Gwen Blevins

Undergraduate Fellows,

Gwen Blevins is a sophomore from Kansas City, MO, majoring in Constitutional Democracy and International Studies, with minors in Spanish and Political Science. Gwen is involved on campus with the Missouri Debate Union, as the Director of Programming, Mizzou Model United Nations, as Parliamentarian, and the Kinder Undergraduate Society. She also works as a Campaign Fellow at the Missouri State Democratic Caucus, where she assists in fundraising events and campaign financing. In her free time, Gwen enjoys crocheting, playing video games with friends, and reading comics. Gwen is passionate about international affairs and Indigenous rights, and she hopes to attend graduate school after finishing at Mizzou to pursue a career in the Department of State.

Cole Bower

Cole Bower

Kinder Scholars,

Cole Bower is a rising junior from Kansas City, MO, triple-majoring in Constitutional Democracy, Political Science, and Economics. He was a member of the Kinder Institute’s Residential College and Society of Fellows and is the treasurer of Mizzou College Democrats. He currently works as finance director for a competitive State Senate race in Boone County, and previously managed a successful State House campaign in south Columbia. In his free time, Cole enjoys cheering on Mizzou basketball and playing Frederic Chopin’s music on piano. Upon graduation he plans to pursue a full-time career in Democratic politics.

Anurag Ram Chandran

Anurag Ram Chandran

Alumni Council,

Fellow (2014-15), Scholar (2015)
Anurag Ram Chandran is a social impact consultant at Dalberg Global Advisors based in Mumbai, India. Previously, he served as the Founder and Executive Director at Impact On The Ground Foundation (IOTG), an NGO focused on improving student learning outcomes in rural India. An inaugural Schwarzman Scholar, Anurag received a Master’s in Global Affairs from Tsinghua University and prior to that, graduated from the University of Missouri with honors in Political Science and Economics.

Billy Coleman

Billy Coleman

Kinder Institute Faculty,

Assistant Teaching Professor (Kinder Institute, MU Honors College, Department of History), colemanw@missouri.edu
Billy Coleman coordinates the collaborative Kinder/Honors sequence in Revolutions and Constitutions and directs the Kinder Institute Democracy Lab. He is the author of Harnessing Harmony: Music, Power, and Politics in the United States, 1788-1865 (University of North Carolina Press)—winner of the American Musicological Society’s H. Robert Cohen/RIPM Award—and his research articles on early and nineteenth-century American music and politics appear in the Journal of Southern History, the Journal of the Early Republic, and Oxford Bibliographies in American Literature. Previously, after completing a Ph.D. in History at University College London (UCL), he held postdoctoral fellowships with the Kinder Institute and in the Department of History at the University of British Columbia. He was the Book Reviews Editor of American Nineteenth Century History for five-years and is co-editing an upcoming special issue on music in American nineteenth-century history for the same publication. His new project, “Making Music National in a Settler State,” is exploring the transnational origins of national music in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Alongside the Revolutions and Constitutions sequence, Dr. Coleman regularly teaches history seminars on the American Revolutionary Era and The Young Republic for the Kinder Institute, interdisciplinary humanities electives in the Honors College, and survey courses in early American history.

 

Carli N. Conklin

Carli N. Conklin

Kinder Institute Faculty,

Kinder Institute Associate Director, Associate Professor of Law and Constitutional Democracy, conklinc@missouri.edu
Carli N. Conklin is the Kinder Institute Associate Director, Associate Professor at the School of Law, and Associate Professor of Constitutional Democracy in the College of Arts & Science.

Professor Conklin’s research interests are in American legal and intellectual history. She completed her B.S. in English and M.A. in Education at Truman State University and studied law and history at the University of Virginia through a joint J.D./M.A. program in American legal history. She was awarded the School of Law’s Madeleine and John Traynor Prize for her Master’s thesis, which explored state court treatment of arbitration in early America. Professor Conklin served as Associate Professor of History and Co-Director of the Pre-Law Professional Program at John Brown University before returning to U.Va. to complete her Ph.D. in History. Her dissertation explored the meaning of the pursuit of happiness in historical context.

Professor Conklin’s research has been published by the American Journal of Legal History, the Ohio State University Journal on Dispute Resolution, the University of Missouri Journal of Dispute Resolution, and the Washington University Jurisprudence Review. Her recent book, The Pursuit of Happiness in the Founding Era:  An Intellectual History, was published through the Kinder Institute’s Studies in Constitutional Democracy monograph series with the University of Missouri Press.

Professor Conklin teaches courses in lawyering and dispute resolution at the School of Law and courses on intellectual history at the Kinder Institute. She serves as the Kinder Institute Director of Undergraduate Studies, coordinating, among other things, the Society of Fellows program and the Constitutionalism and Democracy Honors College course series.

Brittony Hein

Brittony Hein

Staff,

Sr. Academic Advisor (Constitutional Democracy & History), corneillierb@missouri.edu
Born and raised in Keystone, Colorado, Brittony (Corneillier) Hein has a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies with an emphasis in Peace Studies, as well as a Graduate Certificate in Public Health from Mizzou. She is currently finishing up her Master’s of Education from Stephens College in Counseling. Prior to becoming the Senior Academic Advisor for Constitutional Democracy and History, she was with the Division of Biological Sciences as an Academic Advisor for five years, and prior to advising, she spent two years in the office of admissions. Brittony has been awarded the College of Arts and Science Academic Advisor of the Year (2021), Excellence in Advising Outstanding Advising Winner (2021), and the Blue Chalk Teaching Award (Fall 2017). In addition to her role as an Academic Advisor, she serves on a variety of committees throughout the College of Arts and Science and the university.

Edilberto Corte Real de Oliveira

Edilberto Corte Real de Oliveira

Kinder Scholars,

Edilberto Corte Real de Oliveira hails from Timor-Leste, a small, half-island nation located at the crossroads of Southeast Asia and the Pacific. A rising senior, he is pursuing dual-degree programs in Political Science and Sociology, with a minor in Criminology. Edilberto is an active member of the Mizzou community, holding leadership positions in various organizations such as the Beta Chi Omicron Honor Society and Missouri International Student Council. Outside of his academic commitments, Edilberto loves to travel and immerse himself in new cultures, broadening his perspective and understanding of the world. He is deeply passionate about international development and hopes to leverage his education and experiences to uplift individuals residing in post-conflict countries.

Anna Cowden

Anna Cowden

Anna Cowden is a rising senior from Overland Park, Kan., a suburb of Kansas City, Mo. She is double majoring in Journalism (strategic communications) and Constitutional Democracy (politics and policy). Other than Kinder Scholars, she was a Kinder Fellow her junior year and a member of the inaugural class of the Kinder Institute Residential College her freshman year. She is currently a Kinder Ambassador. Anna spent her first two years at MU as a reporter and copy chief at the university’s independent-run student newspaper, The Maneater. Anna has corporate communications and marketing experience as a two-summer intern for CommunityAmerica Credit Union and is a regular collaborator with the marketing team at the Kansas City Area Development Council (KCADC). Anna spends her free time watching the Royals (Hey, they’re getting better!), cooking vegan food, and listening to podcasts.

Erica Croft

Erica Croft

Atlantic History M.A. Cohort,

Erica Croft received a B.A. in Political Science with a minor in Constitutional Studies from Utah Valley University in 2021, graduating magna cum laude. As a Wood Research Assistant at UVU’s Center for Constitutional Studies from 2019 to 2022, Erica contributed to the Quill Project, a digital history initiative which maps legislative and constitutional processes. In 2022, Erica presented her work on the digitization of the records of the United States Congress from 1862 to 1875, which emphasized the development of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Constitutional Amendments.

Dennis Crouch

Dennis Crouch

Affiliated Faculty,

Judge C.A. Leedy Professor of Law, MU School of Law, crouchdd@missouri.edu
Professor Crouch is Associate Professor of Law at the University of Missouri School of Law. Prior to joining the MU Law Faculty, he was a patent attorney at McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP in Chicago, Illinois, and taught at Boston University Law School. He has worked on cases involving various technologies including computer memory and hardware, circuit design, software, networking, mobile and internet telephony, automotive technologies, lens design, bearings, HVAC systems, and business methods. He is also the editor of the popular patent law weblog: Patently-O.

Professor Crouch received his BSE in mechanical engineering cum laude from Princeton University, where he also earned a certificate in engineering management systems. He then earned his JD cum laude from the University of Chicago Law School. While at the University of Chicago, he was a Microsoft, Merck, & Pfizer Scholar and a member of the Olin Program in Law and Economics.
Prior to attending law school, Professor Crouch worked as a technical consultant for manufacturing firms in New England, as a research fellow at NASA’s Glenn Research Center, as a software developer at the Mayo Clinic’s department of biomedical imaging, and as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ghana, West Africa. Dennis Crouch grew up on a farm near Pittsburg, Kansas.

Grace Cunningham

Grace Cunningham

Grace Cunningham is a sophomore from Columbia, Missouri studying Environmental Science with a minor in Political Science. At Mizzou, she is involved with Kappa Alpha Theta which has given her the opportunity to take part in Mizzou traditions such as Homecoming and serving on the house decks committee. Aside from school, Grace enjoys being outside and is always planning her next adventure. Grace wants to have a career working with environmental policy for climate change mitigation.

Drew Dahlgren

Drew Dahlgren

Kinder Scholars,

Drew Dahlgren is a third-year student at Mizzou from Arlington Heights, Illinois. He is majoring in Constitutional Democracy, Religious Studies, and Political Science (Pre-Law), with a minor in History. On campus, he is a member of the baritone section of Marching Mizzou and Chairman of the Washington Society, a student organization for political and philosophical discussion. Drew has taken an interest in studying the intersection of religion and politics in America and abroad, and he hopes to attend law school to pursue a career in constitutional law.

Hope Davis

Hope Davis

Hope Davis is a junior from Atlanta, Georgia, studying journalism, political science, constitutional democracy, and humanities. She is currently a city and county government reporter at the Columbia Missourian focusing on covering housing issues, as well as a Kinder Ambassador and Journalism Ambassador. Hope spent her freshman and sophomore years as a copy editor and copy chief at MU’s campus newspaper, the Maneater, and she enjoys (and will talk at length about) feminist thought and philosophy, fashion history, and classic film.

Chris Deutsch

Chris Deutsch

PostDoctoral Fellows,

DPAA Research Partner Fellow, crdkf9@missouri.edu
Chris Deutsch is the University of Missouri DPAA Research Partner Fellow. He provides historical research support for the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) and the Agency’s mission “to provide the fullest possible accounting for our missing personnel to their families and the nation.” He is working on a manuscript under advanced contract with the University of Nebraska Press, tentatively titled, “Beeftopia: The Red Meat Politics of Prosperity in Postwar America,” on the role of public policy and politics in the rise of beef production and consumption in the decades after World War II. The book will explore the government’s efforts to secure beef, which was a key metric of affluence and which Americans measured nightly on their dinner plates. He has previously taught history at the University of Missouri, including courses on food history, the 1980s, and the twentieth century. He earned B.A. and M.A. degrees in history at California State University, Sacramento, and a Ph.D. from at the University of Missouri.

Christa Dierksheide

Christa Dierksheide

Visiting Professors,

Kinder Institute Distinguished Visiting Research Fellow, dierksheidec@missouri.edu
Christa Dierksheide is Brockman Foundation Jefferson Scholars Foundation Professor and Associate Professor of History at the University of Virginia. She is the author of Amelioration and Empire: Progress and Slavery in the Plantation Americas, 1770-1840 (Virginia, 2014) and a forthcoming global history of Jefferson’s family members on both sides of the color line, ca. 1820-1880 (Yale). Formerly Historian at the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello, she has curated several exhibitions and written and lectured about the early United States for a wide variety of scholarly and public audiences. Her next book project, co-authored with Nicholas Guyatt, is Jefferson’s Wolf: The Struggle to End Slavery in the Founding Era (Harvard). She will join the Kinder Institute during AY 2023-24 as a Distinguished Visiting Research Fellow.

Jay Dow

Jay Dow

Kinder Institute Faculty, Advisory Board,

Kinder Institute Professor of Constitutional Democracy, Professor of Political Science, dow@missouri.edu
Jay Dow is Professor of Political Science and 2017-2020 Frederick A. Middlebush Chair in Political Science. Before coming to the University of Missouri, he earned an undergraduate degree at the University of Oregon and a Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin. Professor Dow’s research focuses on voting and elections, which he approaches from the public choice tradition in political science, as reflected in his recent book, Electing the House: The Adoption and Performance of the Single-Member District Electoral System (University Press of Kansas, March 2017). Professor Dow regularly teaches courses on American government, parties and elections, and American political thought, as well as the “Constitutional Debates” course for the Kinder Institute’s Honors College series, and he also organizes the Jefferson Book Club, an extracurricular undergraduate reading group that meets monthly to discuss great books in the classical liberal tradition.

Cooper Drury

Cooper Drury

Senior Affiliates,

Dean, MU College of Arts & Science, drury@missouri.edu
Cooper Drury is the Dean of the College of Arts and Science and Professor in the Truman School of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Missouri. He earned his BA and MA from Michigan State University and his PhD from Arizona State University.

His primary research and teaching interests focus on foreign policy. Specifically, he studies the causes, outcomes, and consequences of economic sanctions. Professor Drury has authored or co-authored two books, an award-winning textbook, and over two dozen articles and chapters. A committed teacher, Professor Drury has trained 25 doctoral students and has been awarded multiple teaching and mentorship awards. In his field, Professor Drury served as editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy Analysis and as the 2016 International Studies Association program co-chair, and was awarded the Foreign Policy Analysis Distinguished Scholar Award, Quincy Wright Distinguished Scholar Award, and the Ladd Hollist Service Award.

At the University of Missouri, he has served as department chair, on the faculty council and intercampus faculty council, and led numerous campus and system-level committees.

Daive Dunkley

Daive Dunkley

Senior Affiliates,

Professor and Chair, Department of Black Studies, Director, Peace Studies Program, dunkleyd@missouri.edu
Daive Dunkley is Professor and Chair in the MU Department of Black Studies, Director of Mizzou’s Peace Studies Program, and an affiliate faculty member at the Kinder Institute and in the Departments of History and Religious Studies. His research focuses on the history and culture of the Caribbean and the wider Black Atlantic, and he has authored publications exploring slave resistance, British colonialism, decolonization, and the politics of the Rastafari. He is the author, co-author, or editor of several books, including Readings in Caribbean History and Culture: Breaking Ground (2011), Agency of the Enslaved: Jamaica and the Culture of Freedom in the Atlantic World (2013), Leonard Percival Howell and the Genesis of the Rastafari (2015), and Black Resistance in the Americas (2019). Additionally, his book chapters and articles include “Enslaved Africans and the Transformation of Society in Brazil and the Caribbean: A View from the Churches,” published in the collection The African Heritage in Brazil and the Caribbean (2011), and “The Politics of Repatriation and the First Rastafari, 1932-1940,” published in Souls (2018). Prof. Dunkley has a strong desire to educate others about Black history and its implications for the present.

Julie Elman

Julie Elman

Senior Affiliates,

Associate Professor, Department of Women’s & Gender Studies, Director, MU Center for the Humanities, elmanj@missouri.edu
Julie Passanante Elman is an associate professor of women’s and gender studies. She is also the founding director of the Center for the Humanities and the B.A. program in health humanities. Elman is the author of Chronic Youth: Disability, Sexuality, and U.S. Media Cultures of Rehabilitation (NYU Press, 2014), and her articles have appeared in a variety of peer-reviewed journals. She is currently working on a second monograph, Capacity Feminism and Its Discontents. Her teaching excellence and commitment to community-building have been recognized with several university awards, including the Provost’s Outstanding Junior Faculty Teaching Award, the Maxine Christopher Shutz Award and Lecture for Distinguished Teaching, and the Lee Henson Memorial Access Mizzou Award.

James Endersby

James Endersby

Affiliated Faculty,

Professor, Truman School of Government & Public Affairs, endersby@missouri.edu
James Endersby (Professor) has been with the Department of Political Science since 1991. He received his Ph.D. in 1990 from the University of Texas and specializes in American politics and government, political behavior (voting and elections), formal political theory, and research methods. Endersby served as the director of Canadian Studies at the University of Missouri and was past president of the Southwestern Political Science Association (2015-2016) and the Midwest Association for Canadian Studies (2007-2009).

Carl H. Esbeck

Carl H. Esbeck

Affiliated Faculty,

R.B. Price and Isabelle Wade & Paul C. Lyda Professor Emeritus, MU School of Law, esbeckc@missouri.edu
Carl H. Esbeck joined the faculty of the University of Missouri School of Law in 1981 and currently serves as the R.B. Price Professor Emeritus and Isabelle Wade & Paul C. Lyda Professor of Law Emeritus. He received his Juris Doctor magna cum laude in 1974 from Cornell University, where he was on the board of editors of the Cornell Law Review. Prof. Esbeck held a judicial clerkship with the Honorable Howard C. Bratton, chief judge of the U.S. District Court in New Mexico, and, from 1975-81, he practiced law in the Albuquerque firm of Rodey, Dickason, Sloan, Akin & Robb, where he was an equity partner when he left. Prof. Esbeck has published widely in the area of religious liberty and church-state relations, and he is recognized as the progenitor of “charitable choice,” an integral part of the 1996 Federal Welfare Reform Act, and later applied to all federal social-service grant programs via the faith-based initiative under Presidents Biden, Obama, and Bush. In addition, he has taken the lead in recognizing that the modern U.S. Supreme Court has applied the Establishment Clause not as a personal right, but as a structural limit on the government’s authority in explicitly religious matters. While on leave from 1999 to 2002, Prof. Esbeck directed the Center for Law & Religious Freedom (CLRF) at the Christian Legal Society and then served as Senior Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice. While directing the CLRF, he was a central part of the congressional advocacy behind the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA). While at the Department of Justice, one of his duties was to direct a task force to remove barriers to the equal-treatment of faith-based organizations applying for social-service grants. Prof. Esbeck’s most recent book is Disestablishment and Religious Dissent: Disestablishment in the New American States, 1776-1833, published by University of Missouri Press in 2019 as part of the Kinder Institute’s Studies in Constitutional Democracy series. At MU, he taught courses on Civil Procedure, Religious Liberty and Church-State Relations, Federal Civil Rights Litigation, and Constitutional Law.

Olivia Evans

Olivia Evans

Alumni Council,

Scholar (2021), Certificate in American Constitutional Democracy
Olivia Evans was raised in the bourbon and bluegrass state, in Louisville, KY. At Mizzou, Olivia studied Journalism, Political Science, Constitutional Democracy, and Spanish. She also was an athlete on Mizzou’s Track and Field Team where she threw hammer and weight for four years. The summer before senior year, Olivia interned for Forbes as part of the Kinder Scholars Program, and after graduating from Mizzou, she moved back to Louisville where she began working for the USA Today Network covering business and the overlap of policy and the business world in Kentucky.

 

Devin Fergus

Devin Fergus

Affiliated Faculty,

Arvarh E. Strickland Distinguished Professor of History and Black Studies, fergusd@missouri.edu
Devin Fergus is the Arvarh E. Strickland Distinguished Professor of History and Black Studies. His research focuses on political economy, policy, and inequality in modern America. Professor Fergus’s most recent book, Land of the Fee (Oxford, 2018), explores the hidden costs of rising financial fees at home, school, work, and transportation on wealth and mobility in modern America. A much-anticipated work, Land of the Fee has been called one of the five best books for understanding capitalism today by The Nation. His current research project examines white-collar crime and the racial wealth gap. He is also author of Liberalism, Black Power, and the Making of American Politics, which was named a Choice Outstanding Book Title in 2010.

Fergus is guest editor of the special issue Banking without Borders: Culture and Credit in the New Financial World for Kalfou, a journal published by Temple University Press. This special issue examines the impact of four decades of financial deregulation in the US on vulnerable populations, which has increasingly affected the middle class. He has written widely on policy, political economy, and inequality for the New York Times, Washington Post, and the Guardian, among other outlets. Along with Louis Hyman, Bethany Moreton, and Julia Ott, Professor Fergus is also editor of the Columbia Studies in the History of U.S. Capitalism book series published by Columbia University Press.

Professor Fergus has worked closely with several national policy organizations (e.g., Demos, Closing the Racial Wealth Gap Initiative, the Center for Global Policy Solutions, and Prosperity Now) and has presented research to a number of federal entities, including the US Treasury, US Department of Education, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Special Master (Kenneth Feinberg) for TARP Executive Compensation. Professor Fergus received his PhD in American history from Columbia University.

Rob Fletcher

Rob Fletcher

Kinder Institute Faculty,

Kinder Professor of British History, Professor of History, r.fletcher@missouri.edu
Rob Fletcher is Kinder Professor of British History and Professor of History at the University of Missouri. His work explores the history of Britain and its empire in the modern period, and the interplay of national, transnational, and global histories. He grew up in Colchester, England, and read Modern History at Magdalen College, University of Oxford. He lived in Tokushima, Japan, before returning to Oxford to complete his doctoral studies. He has previously held positions as the Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Global History at Oxford, Lecturer in Imperial and Global History at the University of Exeter, and Reader in the History of Britain and Empire at the University of Warwick.

Professor Fletcher’s research on the history of Britain’s empire is wide-ranging, and has appeared in Past and Present, The English Historical Review, Journal of Historical Geography, and Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient. He is the author of British Imperialism and ‘The Tribal Question’: Desert Administration and Nomadic Societies in the Middle East, 1919-1936 (Oxford University Press, 2015), which told the story of what happened when the British empire and Bedouin communities met on the desert frontiers between the Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf. His second book, The Ghost of Namamugi (Amsterdam University Press, 2019) provided an examination of mercantile ambition and imperial power in Shanghai and Yokohama in the mid-nineteenth century.

Professor Fletcher has been the Principal Investigator on a number of research projects supported by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council, including a Science in Culture award on the international campaign against the desert locust in the twentieth century. In conducting his research, he has collaborated with a number of museums and public organisations in the UK, Europe, and Australia. His current book project examines Britain’s historic relationship with the world’s desert environments.

Brendon Floyd

Brendon Floyd

Graduate Fellows,

Haskell Monroe Graduate Fellow in Civil War Era History, bgfloyd@mail.missouri.edu
Brendon Floyd is a graduate research fellow at the Kinder Institute and holds a B.A. in History and an M.Ed. in Secondary Education from Johnson State College, as well as an M.A. in History from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. As a Ph.D. candidate in History at the University of Missouri, he works under the supervision of Jay Sexton. His research interests are Irish radicalism during the Age of Revolution, with particular attention to the United Irishmen, their involvement in the maritime world and the West Indies, and their role in the War of 1812.

Mia Foley

Mia Foley

Atlantic History M.A. Cohort,

From Providence, RI, Mia graduated from the University of Rhode Island in May 2023 with a B.A. in Psychology and a B.A. in Africana Studies. She spent time on the Student Advisory Council for the Africana Studies Department to help revamp the program and recruit others who may be interested in the major. She also held a position as the Vice President of Intellectual Development, and was a founding member of her sorority, Alpha Chi Omega, which re-established at URI in 2021. Additionally, her favorite shows are RuPaul’s Drag Race and Survivor, and being from New England, she also loves watching Celtics games. Go Celtics! Currently, Mia’s research is focused on the free Black society of New Orleans from 1763 to 1825. History and Geography have been her favorite subjects since she was young.

Mya Franklin

Mya Franklin

Undergraduate Fellows,

Mya Franklin is a sophomore from Saint Louis, Missouri, majoring in Constitutional Democracy and Political Science, with minors in History and Spanish. Her studies focus on constitutional law and founding documents. In addition to being a member of the 2023-24 Society of Fellows cohort, Mya did campaign work for Kip Kendrick last school year, and she currently works at the RSVP Center and is training to be a future Peer Educator. She is also involved in the service sorority, Little Sisters of the Gold Rose. In her free time, she enjoys listening to Taylor Swift, watching sit-coms, and eating good food.

Samantha Franks

Samantha Franks

Alumni Council,

Fellow (2014-2015), Scholar (2015)
Samantha graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Mizzou with degrees in English and Political Science. After graduating, she completed her Master’s in International Conflict Prevention as a Fulbright Postgraduate Scholar at Durham University in the United Kingdom and her law degree at the University of Michigan Law School. She now lives in Washington, D.C., where she specializes in international trade law and advocates for human trafficking survivors.

Matthew Frierdich

Matthew Frierdich

Kinder Institute Faculty,

Assistant Teaching Professor (Kinder Institute, Honors College, Truman School), mfghp@missouri.edu
Originally from Kirkwood, MO, Matthew Frierdich received his B.A. in History and Government from Drury University, his M.Div from Vanderbilt Divinity School, and his Ph.D. in Political Theory from University of Virginia. Prior to joining the Mizzou faculty as an Assistant Teaching Professor, jointly appointed in the Honors College, Kinder Institute, and Truman School of Government and Public Affairs, he served as a board-certified chaplain at Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville. At the Honors College and Kinder Institute, he co-coordinates the new Revolutions and Constitutions social science sequence. His dissertation at UVA, entitled “Turning Rubble and Memory into Seeds: Visions of Democracy in Monument Removal,” focuses on how activism around public memorializations of race and racialized violence offer possibilities and pitfalls for the work of social transformation. As memory becomes a popular political vernacular for articulating justice in the U.S. and elsewhere, the project considers how memory activism raises questions about what democratic engagement must become to cultivate new ways of being human.

To stay grounded in an otherwise chaotic world, Dr. Frierdich loves to tend to his garden, mostly vegetables and a few flowers. He also stays invested in Marvel comics, horror films, and anywhere that sells used books. His partner Emily, son Ezra, and cats Zelda and Tish fill up his cup every day.

 

Bryce Fuemmeler

Bryce Fuemmeler

Alumni Council,

Scholar (2018), Fellow (2018-19), Study at Oxford (2019)
Originally from Boonville, Missouri, Bryce Fuemmeler graduated with degrees in Economics and History from Mizzou in 2020. Following graduation, he received an M.Sc. in Economic and Social History from the University of Oxford, where he studied postwar England’s welfare state and America’s Great Society programs. He currently heads the research team for Harvard’s Leadership & Happiness Laboratory, founded by Dr. Arthur Brooks.

Maggie Funston

Maggie Funston

Undergraduate Fellows,

Maggie Funston is a sophomore from Festus, Missouri, majoring in Political Science and Constitutional Democracy. On campus, Maggie is the president of Mizzou Model United Nations, a senator for the Missouri Students Association (MSA), and the director of MSA’s First Year Council. She is also a member of the Mizzou Mock Trial Association, Pi Sigma Alpha (Political Science Honor Society), and the MU Chancellor’s Standing Committees on Undergraduate Curriculum and Information Security Council Governance. As she moves through her studies, Maggie looks forward to attending law school, and cannot wait to continue learning about the world around her!

Hunter Gappmayer

Hunter Gappmayer

Alumni Council,

M.A. in Atlantic History & Politics (2022-2023)
Hunter Gappmayer was born and raised in Bozeman, Montana, and after a brief time studying I.T. Business and playing football at Montana Tech University, transferred to Brigham Young University where he graduated with a B.A. in History Teaching. Following his time at BYU, Hunter participated in the Kinder Institute’s M.A. program in Atlantic History & Politics. Since graduating from Mizzou, Hunter has moved to Utah, where he has assisted in the Utah Prison Education Project and currently teaches U.S. history and psychology at Lehi High School.

Malcolm Gerhardt

Malcolm Gerhardt

Undergraduate Fellows,

Malcolm Gerhardt is a sophomore from St. Louis, MO, majoring in Education with a focus on Secondary Social Studies. In addition to being a member of the Kinder Institute Society of Fellows, he serves as treasurer for the Mizzou Young Democratic Socialists of America. In his free time, Malcolm enjoys creating linocuts, watching Star Trek, and making semi-legible latte art.

Alan Gibson

Alan Gibson

Senior Fellows,

Kinder Institute Distinguished Faculty Fellow, argc5f@missouri.edu
Alan Gibson is Professor of Political Science at California State University, Chico. His focus is American political thought, especially that of the American founding. Gibson has held fellowships from the International Center for Jefferson Studies in Charlottesville, Virginia, the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He has published articles in, among other journals, American Political Thought, Polity, History of Political Thought, and The Review of Politics. Gibson is the author of two books on the historiography of the American founding, both published by University Press of Kansas, and he is currently working on a study of the political thought of James Madison, tentatively titled James Madison and the Creation of an Impartial Republic. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Notre Dame.

Jakob Gibson

Jakob Gibson

Atlantic History M.A. Cohort,

Jakob Gibson received his B.A. in Political Science from Westminster College in Fulton, MO, where he also completed various internships, op eds, and conference presentations on various ethical warfare topics. As a student in the M.A. program, he hopes to specialize in the study of ethical warfare and the War on Terror.

Tobias Gibson

Tobias Gibson

Visiting Professors,

Kinder Institute Distinguished Visiting Research Fellow, tobias.gibson@westminster-mo.edu
Dr. Tobias T. Gibson is the Dr. John Langton Professor of Legal Studies and Political Science at Westminster College, in Fulton, MO. He is the co-editor of two books: Contextualizing Security: A Reader, published by the University of Georgia Press; and the recently released Red Reckoning: The Cold War and the Transformation of American Life, published by LSU Press. Dr. Gibson earned his Ph.D. and A.M. in Political Science from Washington University in St. Louis, and his B.A. in History and Political Science from Indiana University.

His research interests explore the intersection of law, policy, and national security. He has published numerous book chapters, scholarly articles, and public scholarship in outlets such as The Hill, The Monkey Cage, and Missouri’s newspapers of record.

Dr. Gibson is a Distinguished Fellow with the Institute for Security Policy and Law at Syracuse University, an editor with the Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, and joins the Kinder Institute during the Spring 2024 semester as a Distinguished Visiting Research Fellow.

Tara Ginnane

Tara Ginnane

PostDoctoral Fellows,

Postdoctoral Fellow in Political Thought & Constitutionalism, tginnane@missouri.edu
Tara Ginnane works in constitutional theory, political theory, and comparative constitutionalism. She received a BA from the University of Oxford, an LLM from the University of Chicago, a PhD from the University of Texas at Austin, and a certificate in French and European law from the University of Paris (Panthéon-Assas). 

Tara’s political theory research focuses on how transnational political participation affects the spatiality of democracy. She is also interested in how territory matters to political community. Her dissertation, “The National Membership Politics of External Voting,” proposes normative guidelines for external voting policies based on an original comparative empirical study of their relationship to national membership. Tara’s constitutional theory research focuses on the normative logics of constitutional structures and has been published in Polity.  

Leah Glasser

Leah Glasser

Leah Glasser will graduate in December 2022 from the Missouri School of Journalism, where she is working toward a degree in Strategic Communication, with minors in Political Science and Constitutional Democracy. After graduation, Leah hopes to pursue her interests in sustainable agriculture and social justice through a career in communications for a task force or nonprofit. Previously, Leah worked as a field organizer on the 2020 Minnesota Democratic Coordinated Campaign and this past summer, got some hands-on experience working on her parent’s organic garlic farm. Currently, she is working on an essay for Kinder’s Journal on Constitutional Democracy as part of the Society of Fellows program. Leah hails from White Salmon, Washington and enjoys swimming, hiking, skiing, and reading in her free time.

Jacqueline Glenn

Jacqueline Glenn

Kinder Scholars,

Jacqueline Glenn is a third-year honors student from Edwardsville, Illinois, pursuing a double-major in English and Constitutional Democracy, where her emphases are Black Literature and Law & Institutions, respectively. She loves all things pertaining to civil rights. Aside from the Society of Fellows and Kinder Scholars, Jacqueline is a member of Phi Mu sorority, a Student Ambassador for the College of Arts and Sciences, and serves as a Team Leader for Jumpstart Mizzou. After graduation, Jacqueline hopes to attend law school and eventually practice some sort of human rights law.

Lawrence Goldman

Lawrence Goldman

Senior Fellows,

Kinder Institute Senior Fellow, lawrence.goldman@spc.ox.ac.uk
Lawrence Goldman was born in London and graduated in History from the University of Cambridge (Jesus College). He studied American History at Yale as a Harkness Fellow and returned to Britain to do his doctoral work at Cambridge’s Trinity College, focusing on the history of social science in the Victorian period. He spent 29 years as a university lecturer at the University of Oxford where he was Fellow and Tutor in History at St. Peter’s College and where he taught modern British and American History. He was then Director of the Institute of Historical Research in the University of London. From 2004-2014 he was the Editor of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, a compendium of the most significant figures throughout British history and the longest work in the history of the English languageand he has authored books on Victorian social science, the history of workers’ education in Britain, and the life of political thinker and historian R.H. Tawney, among other topics. He most recently edited, Welfare and Social Policy in Britain Since 1870: Essays in Honour of Jose Harris. He is a Senior Research Fellow of St. Peter’s College and joins the Kinder Institute as a Senior Fellow in the new M.A. program in Atlantic History and Politics.

Carly Gordon

Carly Gordon

Undergraduate Fellows,

Carly Gordon is a sophomore honors student from St. Charles, Missouri, pursuing a double major in Political Science and International Studies, with an emphasis in Latin American Studies, as well as minors in Spanish and Constitutional Democracy. On campus, Carly serves as Vice President of Model United Nations and participates in Pi Sigma Alpha (Mizzou’s Political Science Club). She hopes to utilize the skills she’s refining as an undergraduate in a career in foreign service. Outside of school, Carly enjoys listening to podcasts and traveling with friends.

Maddie McMillian Green

Maddie McMillian Green

Alumni Council,

Scholar (2015), Fellow (2015-16)
Maddie McMillian Green is a Principal at Husch Blackwell Strategies in Missouri. She earned her law degree from the University of Missouri School of Law and undergraduate degrees in Economics and Political Science from the University of Missouri. She recently served as Deputy Attorney General for Policy in the Missouri Attorney General’s Office. Previously, she spent nearly three years in the Missouri Governor’s Office, first as chief of staff to the First Lady and then as manager of strategic initiatives and special assistant to the state’s Chief Operating Officer. Raised in Farmington, MO, she and her husband split their time between St. Louis and Jefferson City.

 

Olivia Gyapong

Olivia Gyapong

Undergraduate Fellows,

Olivia Gyapong is a junior at the University of Missouri, double majoring in Journalism and Political Science and minoring in Constitutional Democracy. She is involved in MU’s National Association of Black Journalists student chapter, the Little Sisters of the Gold Rose service sorority, and undergraduate research. She is originally from Silver Spring, MD, and, if her dreams of obtaining a Fulbright do not pan out, plans to return to the DMV area to pursue a law degree and a career as a foreign policy reporter. When she is not writing for the Columbia Missourian, taking photos, participating in extracurriculars, or doing community service, Olivia loves to cook, bake, and play with her pet rabbit called Salt.

Ben Henschel

Ben Henschel

Kinder Scholars,

Ben Henschel is a rising senior from Fairway, KS, majoring in Journalism and Constitutional Democracy, with minors in Economics, Political Science, and History. Ben is currently President of the Mizzou Alumni Association Student Board and sits on the MAA Board of Directors. He is also Senior Editor at Midwestern Citizen, an undergraduate law and policy journal based in Ann Arbor, and enjoys reading and writing about law and music in his free time. Ben has worked for a variety of organizations, including as a legal intern for the Missouri State Public Defender’s Office, a marketing intern for Starting Points Journal, an account manager for Matchbook Marketing, and a student ambassador for the Kinder Institute. Ben spends a lot of his free time exploring new record stores and bookshops, along with talking basketball with friends.

Rodolfo Hernandez

Rodolfo Hernandez

Kinder Institute Faculty,

Kinder Institute Assistant Teaching Professor of Constitutional Democracy, Assistant Teaching Professor of Political Science, hernandezrk@missouri.edu
Rodolfo (Rudy) Hernandez is a Kinder Institute Assistant Teaching Professor of Constitutional Democracy and Assistant Teaching Professor of Political Science. His research focuses on political theory and American political development, and his dissertation considers the political economy of Abraham Lincoln’s thought, especially as it relates to the principle of equality expressed by the Declaration of Independence. Recently his work has appeared in The Political Science Reviewer.  He frequently teaches American Government, American Political Thought, and Race and the American Story. Dr. Hernandez received his Ph.D. in Political Theory from Louisiana State University (2017) and his B.A. from St. John’s College (Annapolis, 1999). He previously taught as a Visiting Instructor at Louisiana Tech University and as a Senior Lecturer at Texas State University, and he served from 2018-20 as a Kinder Institute Postdoctoral Fellow in Political Thought & Constitutionalism. He also has prior government experience, including having been in AmeriCorps, having worked as a tax examiner in the U.S. Treasury Department, and eight years in the U.S. Army Reserve.

 

Mark Hood

Mark Hood

Mark Hood is a sophomore from Kansas City, MO, majoring in Business Administration, with an emphasis in Finance, and minoring in Pre-Law. On campus he’s involved with the Black Business Association, in addition to serving as a Residential Advisor and a Peer-Learning Assistant. He’s interested in photography and 3D house modeling and would ultimately like to use real estate law to develop under-privileged and underserved communities.

Grant Hopkins

Grant Hopkins

Atlantic History M.A. Cohort,

Grant Hopkins earned a B.S. in Philosophy from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 2012. His undergraduate studies focused on ethical and political philosophy. Upon graduation, Grant commissioned in the United States Army as an active-duty Infantry officer. After fulfilling his service obligation, Grant returned to his hometown of Jefferson City, Missouri and applied to the University of Missouri School of Law. As a dual J.D./M.A. student and veteran, Grant is thankful for the opportunity to learn from his peers and instructors while also bringing his own unique experiences and perspectives to the classroom.

Bill Horner

Bill Horner

Affiliated Faculty,

Bill Horner is Director of Undergraduate Studies and Teaching Professor in the Department of Political Science. He studied Radio, Television, and Film as an undergraduate at Northwestern University before completing graduate degrees in Political Science at Arizona State University (M.A.) and the University of Texas at Austin (Ph.D.). He is the author of Showdown in the Show-Me State (2005) and Ohio’s Kingmaker: Mark Hanna, Man and Myth (2010), and Saturday Night Live and the 1976 Presidential Election (2018), with MU Chair of Theatre Heather Carver. In addition, he is the co-author, with MU Professor of Political Science James Endersby, of Lloyd Gaines and the Fight to End Segregation, the first book published on the Kinder Institute’s Studies in Constitutional Democracy series with University of Missouri Press. Since arriving at the University of Missouri, Professor Horner has twice been awarded the Purple Chalk Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Education and has also received the prestigious William T. Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Excellence and the Chancellor’s Excellence Award for Lifetime Achievement in Advising for his work with Pi Sigma Alpha, the Political Science Department’s honors organization.

Camille Hosman

Camille Hosman

Alumni Council,

Fellow (2014-2015), Scholar (2015)
Camille is the Associate Director of Federal Affairs for the University of Pennsylvania. In this role, she represents Penn in Washington, D.C., developing the university’s strategy related to federal policy, regulations, and funding, and helping manage the university’s relationship with the federal government. Before joining Penn, she was the Assistant Director for Government Relations at the Consortium of Social Science Associations (COSSA) and a Federal Relations Assistant for the University of Missouri System. She is originally from Ashland, Missouri, and studied Political Science at Mizzou.

Luke Hruby

Luke Hruby

Undergraduate Fellows,

A junior at Mizzou, Luke Hruby is a double major in Political Science and Constitutional Democracy. He is involved in the Missouri Students Association, where he serves as an Academic Senator for the College of Arts and Science and sits on the Internal Affairs Committee to help delegate funding to student organizations across campus. He also serves as a Justice for the Residence Halls Association, where he works to improve student life and well-being in the dorms. Outside of his involvement on campus, Luke enjoys cheering on Mizzou athletics and is a huge fan of Chicago sports and Formula 1 racing.

Jennie Ikuta

Jennie Ikuta

Kinder Institute Faculty,

Kinder Institute Assistant Professor of Constitutional Democracy, Assistant Professor of Political Science, jcikuta@missouri.edu
Jennie Ikuta is an Assistant Professor of Political Science in the Truman School of Government & Public Affairs and an Assistant Professor of Constitutional Democracy at the Kinder Institute. Born in San Diego and raised in Yokohama, Japan, she returned to the United States as an undergraduate at the University of Chicago (2007) and completed her Ph.D. in political theory at Brown University (2014).

As a political theorist, Ikuta’s research interests center on the role of moral psychology in politics, especially in 19th- and 20th-century political thought. Her first book, Contesting Conformity: Democracy and the Paradox of Political Belonging (Oxford University Press, 2020) examines the thought of Tocqueville, Mill, and Nietzsche in order to investigate the notion of nonconformity and its relationship to modern democracy. Articles drawn from this project have been published in Constellations (2017) and Philosophy & Social Criticism (2015).

Since then, she has turned her attention to the kinds of motivations necessary for generating social change in contexts of historical injustice. This is the focus of her second book project, White Losses: Moral Psychology and the Demands of Racial Justice, which is under advance contract at Oxford University Press. This project employs the thought of Ida B. Wells-Barnett, W.E.B. Du Bois, and James Baldwin—in conjunction with analyses of popular forms of American liberalism and contemporary political theory—to illuminate the psychological transformations required by members of historically dominant groups for the sake of a more egalitarian society. Articles drawn from this project have been published in The Journal of Politics (2021) and Polity (2022); another is forthcoming in Political Theory.

Alex Insley

Alex Insley

Atlantic History M.A. Cohort,

Alex Insley studied History at the University of Oxford and now joins the M.A. in Atlantic History and Politics as the Oxford fellow for 2023-2024. Having primarily worked on fields of British and European history over the past few years, he is interested in broadening the scope of his research interests through this programme. Among his many areas of historical interest, Alex is particularly keen to look further into the domestic impact of imperialism on culture and politics, and how that will broaden his understanding of contemporary political developments.

Tommy Jackson

Tommy Jackson

Kinder Scholars,

Tommy Jackson is a third-year student majoring in Constitutional Democracy, History, and Economics, with minors in Political Science, Philosophy, and East Asian Studies. He is the founder and president of the Kinder Institute Undergraduate Society, a university-wide organization dedicated to connecting Kinder students to other Kinder students, to peers at Mizzou and other universities, and to the local Columbia community through the “Applied Constitutional Democracy” program. He is also the founder and chair of the Mid-Missouri Undergraduate Conference on Democracy Studies, the inaugural meeting of which will be held in February 2024 on the topic “Democracy And…” Tommy serves as a Resident Advisor-Peer Learning Assistant for the Kinder Institute Democracy Lab FIG, and is heavily involved in the Missouri Debate Union, Mizzou Model UN, and the Omicron Delta Epsilon international economics honors society. He has previously been involved in the Society of Fellows and Oxford study abroad programs, sits on the College of Arts & Science Student Council, and volunteers at the State Historical Society of Missouri.

Antony Jackson

Antony Jackson

Graduate Fellows,

Kinder Institute Graduate Fellow in Political Science, ajm7b@missouri.edu
Antony Jackson is currently a PhD student of Political Science in the Truman School of Government and Public Affairs and a graduate fellow at the Kinder Institute on Constitutional Democracy. He received his MA in Atlantic History and Politics from the University of Missouri and his BA in Political Science from Utah Valley University. He is interested in American political development and the relationship between institutions and ideas, with particular emphasis on observing the evolution of American state constitutions.

Kenneth Johnson

Kenneth Johnson

Alumni Council,

Raised in Lakeville, MN, Kenneth Johnson received a BA in Political Science from Mizzou, in addition to a Minor in Business and Certificates in Sales and Customer Development and Multicultural Studies. For the past seven years, Kenneth has worked for Johnson Brothers Liquor Company, based in St. Paul, Minnesota, and he has been a manager for the past 5 years. Before working at Johnson Brothers, he was a team lead for the 2014 Al Franken for Senate campaign. Kenneth currently resides in a suburb of Minneapolis, MN.

Miyah Jones

Miyah Jones

Kinder Scholars,

Miyah Jones is a junior from Nashville, TN. She has a Political Science major, with an emphasis in Pre-Law, and a Constitutional Democracy minor. Her goals are to attend Law School after finishing her undergraduate career. She is heavily involved on campus with the Missouri Students Association (Student Body President), Black Pre-Law Students Association (President), Mizzou Women’s Basketball (Manager), Mizzou Black Women’s Initiative, and Phi Alpha Delta Pre-Law Fraternity. This past summer, Miyah worked as a Summer Welcome Leader, and in the fall, she volunteered as a Welcome Week Leader. Outside of school, Miyah enjoys working at the Mizzou Rec, spending time with her family, cooking delicious meals, and traveling across the world. A fun fact about Miyah is that she is the very first Black Female President of the Missouri Students Association in the organization’s history.

Thomas Kane

Thomas Kane

Staff,

Kinder Institute Director of Undergraduate Studies, kanetc@missouri.edu
Raised in Nashville, Tennessee, Thomas Kane earned a B.A. in English from Yale University, an M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of Pittsburgh and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Missouri, where he wrote a critical dissertation on representations of democratic order in the American long poem and a creative dissertation on fractured modes of communication in the digital age. His current research examines echoes of Walt Whitman in 20th-century American poetry, with particular attention to questions of land and agency. While at the University of Pittsburgh, he edited and co-translated Tomaz Salamun’s 2009 collection of poems There’s the Hand and There’s the Arid Chair (Counterpath Press). Thomas served as Assistant Coordinator of Scholarly Programs during the Kinder Institute’s first year before taking on his current responsibilities.

Ilyana Karthas

Ilyana Karthas

Affiliated Faculty,

Associate Professor, Department of History, karthasi@missouri.edu
Ilyana Karthas joined the MU history faculty after teaching for three years at McGill University in both the History Department and Women’s Studies Program. She teaches courses in Modern European intellectual and cultural history, specializing in 19th- and 20th- century France. Her research interests focus on the development of national identity, modern aesthetics, and ideologies of gender. Professor Karthas also teaches courses as part of the Gender Concentration, and she is an Affiliate Faculty member of both the Women’s and Gender Studies Department and the Kinder Institute. In 2010-2011, she served as the first Scholar’s Chair offered by the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies in which she awarded a research stipend, delivered a public lecture, and taught a seminar in the WGST Department. In 2013, she was awarded the Maxine Christopher Shutz Award for Distinguished Teaching & Lecture and, in 2020, she was awarded the Alumnae Anniversary Award for Excellence in Teaching. She has been invited to participate in public lectures at the National WWI Museum in Kansas City.

 

Lael Keiser

Lael Keiser

Senior Affiliates,

Director and Professor, Truman School of Government & Public Affairs, keiserl@missouri.edu
Dr. Lael Keiser is professor and director of the Harry S. Truman School of Government and Public Affairs. Her research and teaching focuses on the policy implementation and the administration of public programs. She serves on the editorial boards of Public Administration Review and the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory. Keiser received the Midwest Political Science Association’s Herbert Simon Award for significant contribution to the study of bureaucracy and the American Society for Public Administration’s Rita Mae Kelly Award for distinguished research on women’s issues. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Public Administration and an elected member of the Governing Board for the Public Management Research Association.

She has current research projects on representative bureaucracy, the automation of public service delivery, administrative burden, and policy implementation among street-level bureaucrats.

Sean Kelly

Sean Kelly

Atlantic History M.A. Cohort,

Sean Kelly graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a B.B.A. in May 2019, majoring in both Accounting and Economics. After a two-year stint as a public accountant, he came to the Kinder Institute as part of their dual-degree program, concurrently pursuing the M.A. in Atlantic History & Politics and a J.D., with a concentration in tax law. Sean has a keen interest in modern transatlantic political exchange and heterodox political economy. When he isn’t listening to a good podcast, he enjoys watching college football and hockey.

Claire Kelly

Claire Kelly

Atlantic History M.A. Cohort,

From St. Louis, Missouri, Claire Kelly graduated summa cum laude from the University of Dayton Honors Program in May of 2023 with dual majors in Political Science and International Studies, with a concentration in Peace and Global Security and a minor in Human Rights Studies. Claire will also begin law school at the University of Missouri in the fall.

Jane Kielhofner

Jane Kielhofner

Alumni Council,

Scholar (2017), Fellow (2018-19)
Jane was born and raised in Springfield, Missouri, and graduated in 2019 with a Bachelor’s in Public Health from Mizzou. Following graduation, she took a gap year to continue her research on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) and scribe at the Missouri Orthopedic Institute (MOI). In Fall 2020, she began medical school at Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts.

Richard D. Kinder

Richard D. Kinder

Advisory Board,

Richard D. Kinder is Executive Chairman of Kinder Morgan, Inc., the largest energy infrastructure company in America, which he co-founded in February 1997. Under his leadership, Kinder Morgan has grown from a small company with 175 employees to a corporation with almost 12,000 employees. He receives a salary of $1 a year and owns approximately 11 percent of Kinder Morgan. Mr. Kinder is a past recipient of Morningstar’s CEO of the Year award.

Kinder Morgan owns an interest in or operates 84,000 miles of pipelines and approximately 165 terminals. The company’s pipelines transport primarily natural gas, refined petroleum products, CO2, and crude oil, and its terminals store, transfer, and handle such products as gasoline, ethanol, coal, petroleum coke, and steel.

Mr. Kinder received his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Missouri and served in Vietnam as a Captain in the U.S. Army. He has served on numerous corporate and non-profit boards and is a life trustee and current Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. He is also chairman of the Kinder Foundation.

Brian Kisida

Brian Kisida

Affiliated Faculty,

Associate Professor, Truman School of Government & Public Affairs, kisidab@missouri.edu
Brian Kisida is an Assistant Professor in the Truman School of Public Affairs at the University of Missouri who focuses on education policy, experimental design, and causal inference. The dominant theme of his research focuses on identifying effective educational options and experiences for at-risk students that can close achievement gaps, experience gaps, and attainment gaps. His research has examined the broad educational benefits of school partnerships with cultural institutions and community arts organizations, teacher diversity, school integration, and urban school choice. His academic publications include articles in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Sociology of Education, Educational Researcher, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, Economics of Education Review, and Policy Studies Journal. He has also co-authored three congressionally mandated experimental evaluation reports for the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences. His work has been cited in congressional testimony before the U.S. House and Senate, and it has appeared in numerous media outlets, including The New York Times, USA Today, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and CNN.

Mikayla Kitchen

Mikayla Kitchen

Kinder Scholars,

Mikayla Kitchen is a rising senior at the University of Missouri from Pittsburg, Kansas. She is studying Public Health with minors in Political Science and Leadership & Public Service. She is passionate about healthy people and healthy systems and plans to pursue a career in public policy with a special interest in health policy after graduating from Mizzou. She serves her community as a leader for a student ministry, a summit coordinator and research assistant for a public health initiative, and a legislative intern for a Missouri State Representative. She loves the outdoors, exploring new foods, and live music.

Nick Knoth

Nick Knoth

Alumni Council,

Scholar (2017)
Nick studied Political Science and History at MU where he was involved with the Civic Leaders Internship Program, Missouri Students Association, Deaton Institute for University Leadership in International Development, Associated Students for the University of Missouri, and Pi Sigma Alpha, the National Political Science Honors Society, in addition to the Kinder Institute on Constitutional Democracy. Since graduating, he has worked for the Columbia (MO) Chamber of Commerce and the Missouri Department of Economic Development. Nick devotes his personal time to serving on the Board of Directors for the Boys & Girls Club of Columbia and the MU Extension Council of Boone County as well as with The Food Bank of Central & Northeast Missouri as a volunteer.

Thom Lambert

Thom Lambert

Affiliated Faculty,

Wall Chair in Corporate Law and Governance, Professor of Law, MU School of Law, lambertt@missouri.edu
Thomas A. Lambert is the Wall Chair in Corporate Law and Governance and Professor of Law. Prof. Lambert’s scholarship focuses on antitrust, corporate, and regulatory matters. He is the author of How to Regulate: A Guide for Policymakers (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2017) and co-author of Antitrust Law: Interpretation and Implementation (5th ed., Foundation Press, 2013). He has also authored or co-authored numerous book chapters and more than 20 journal articles in such publications as the Antitrust Bulletin, the Boston College Law Review, the Minnesota Law Review, the Texas Law Review, and the Yale Journal on Regulation. He blogs regularly at Truth on the Market, a site focused on academic commentary on antitrust, business, and economic legal issues.

In 2017, Professor Lambert received the University of Missouri’s Kemper Faculty Fellowship (awarded annually to five professors throughout the university for exemplary teaching). He has also received the law school’s Blackwell Sanders Award for Teaching Excellence and the university-wide Gold Chalk Award for excellence in graduate teaching. He is a three-time winner of the University of Missouri Law School’s Shook Hardy & Bacon Excellence in Research Award, which is awarded annually for most outstanding faculty scholarship.

Before entering academia, Professor Lambert practiced law in the Chicago office of Sidley Austin and was a John M. Olin Fellow at Northwestern University School of Law and the Center for the Study of American Business (now the Murray Weidenbaum Center) at Washington University. After graduating from law school, he clerked for Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

Michelangelo Landgrave

Michelangelo Landgrave

Affiliated Faculty,

Assistant Professor, Truman School of Government & Public Affairs, michelangelolandgrave@missouri.edu
Michelangelo Landgrave joined the Truman School of Government and Public Affairs in Fall 2022. Prior to coming to Mizzou, he was a fellow at Princeton University’s Department of Politics and the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics (CSDP). He earned his PhD in Political Science from the University of California, Riverside and his MA in Economics from California State University, Long Beach. He was previously an associate fellow in the Federal Government’s Office of Evaluation Sciences (2021-2022).

His research has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Political Analysis, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Electoral Studies, and the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, among other outlets.

He coordinates the Truman Interdisciplinary Group for Experimental Research (TIGER), the S. Truman Research group on Immigration Political Economy (STRIPE), and the American Politics Research Group (APoRG).

Zach Lang

Zach Lang

Graduate Fellows,

Kinder Institute Graduate Fellow, Political Science Ph.D. Candidate, zplbd7@mail.missouri.edu
Zach Lang is a Political Science Ph.D. candidate at the Harry S. Truman School of Government & Public Affairs and a graduate fellow at the Kinder Institute on Constitutional Democracy at the University of Missouri. Before moving to Missouri, he received his B.A. in Government from St. Lawrence University in upstate New York. His subfields are American politics and public policy. His research focuses on federalism and intergovernmental relations. His dissertation examines the content of multistate lawsuits against the federal government in recent decades, the role that state AGs play in them, and the tactics states engage in during litigation.

James Langen

James Langen

James Langen is a sophomore from Columbia, MO, pursuing a double major in Music, as a clarinetist, and History, with an emphasis in public history. He is also pursuing a minor in Spanish. In the School of Music, he is also an employee, working as a cataloguing assistant in the Budds Center. Ultimately, he hopes to get a Master’s Degree in Library Science or Archival Studies and do work in the corresponding area. Outside of school, he spends most of his time re-reading Jane Austen novels, cooking elaborate meals, and practicing Sisyphean piano pieces.

Clyde Graves Lear

Clyde Graves Lear

Advisory Board,

Clyde Lear is the retired Chairman and CEO of Learfield Communications Inc., a company he started in 1972 as an outgrowth of his Master’s project at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. The company, which entered the college sports business in 1975, recently merged with IMG College and is now called Learfield/IMG College.

Learfield/IMG College is the preeminent leader in the collegiate sports marketing arena and is the exclusive provider of marketing services for athletic departments at 220 major universities. The Plano, TX-based company has offices in 250 cities. In addition, Learfield/IMG College has branched out into other affiliated businesses, including licensing, ticket sales and systems, LED displays and scoreboards, collegiate athletic websites, and digital media and brand marketing. The company also operates the nation’s largest agricultural radio network, the Brownfield Network, and four state news networks. Today, Learfield/IMG College has roughly 2,500 employees.

Lear received a Master’s degree in Broadcast Journalism from the University of Missouri in 1968 and an AB degree in 1966 from Central Methodist University (CMU) in Fayette, Missouri. He attended high school in Jefferson City, where he was born in 1944.

Lear is a leader in higher education. For 13 years, he served on the Board of Curators of CMU and for five years was its Chair. He was named a member of the 1992 Class of Distinguished Alumni from the University of Missouri and was a past recipient of the Edward R. Murrow Award, both distinctions in acknowledgment of his significant contribution to media in America. He has also been a leader in the Missouri Governor’s Student Leadership Forum since its inception 32 years ago; was President of Jefferson City’s Memorial Community Hospital; is an Eagle Scout and a member of the Board of Central Bank and the National Board for Young Life; and was enshrined into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame.

Clyde and his wife of 53 years, Sue, have three grown children and six grandchildren.

One of his great loves is mentoring. He and Sue use their resources to develop outstanding executives and leaders, and he gives significant time to helping college age—and post-college age—men and women grow spiritually, personally, and professionally.

Bobby Lee

Bobby Lee

Undergraduate Fellows,

Bobby Lee is a junior from Waterloo, Illinois, double-majoring in History and Constitutional Democracy and double-minoring in East Asian Studies and Political Science. Bobby is actively involved on campus in organizations including the Mizzou Tour Team, Office of Admissions, and Student Organization for the Advancement of Research Education. Additionally, he is currently working on the Santa Fe Trail Project sponsored by the Kinder Institute as part of the ASH Scholars program. Upon graduation, Bobby aspires to attend a doctoral program in history, focusing on the social, political, and borderlands history of China and Taiwan. In his free time, he is an avid fan of basketball and soccer (Go Nuggets and Newcastle!) and Dungeons and Dragons.

Lyn Lepsky

Lyn Lepsky

Atlantic History M.A. Cohort,

Lyn Lepsky graduated cum laude from Mizzou in the spring of 2022 with degrees in Constitutional Democracy and Political Science and a certificate in Multicultural Studies. During their undergraduate studies, they participated in the Kinder Institute Residential College, Kinder’s Society of Fellows, and Mizzou’s Honors College, while also working as a Residential Adviser and Peer Learning Assistant in Wolpers Hall. Lyn’s research interests include the U.S. Reconstruction Era, Abolitionist Feminism, Labor Rights, and the intersections between economic and political systems. Following the conclusion of the M.A., they plan to pursue their Ph.D. in American Studies.

Matthew Levine

Matthew Levine

Atlantic History M.A. Cohort,

Matthew Levine studied History and Politics at the University of Cambridge before embarking on the M.A. in Atlantic History and Politics at Mizzou. He is particularly interested in the history of American expansion, having written a dissertation on the Purchase of Alaska whilst at Cambridge under the guidance of Professor Nick Guyatt. He hopes to use the M.A. to further explore the connections between American and British empire-building in the long nineteenth century.

Mable Lewis

Mable Lewis

Mable Lewis is a junior at The University of Missouri from Columbia, Missouri. She studies Public Health with a Psychology minor, with goals of pursuing health policy in the future. She is heavily involved on campus with the Pre-MPH Scholars program, Public Health Club, School of Health Professions (SHP) Student Council, Little Sisters of the Gold Rose (LSGR), and Women of Color, Honor, and Ambition (WOCHA). Mable is also Flourish Scholarship recipient, and was recently one of 63 students nominated for the MU Award for Academic Distinction (AAD). Outside of school, Mable enjoys spending time with her new puppy, Cupid, trying different local coffee shops, and DIYing home décor. A fun fact is that Mable is first-generation Nigerian-American.

Paul Litton

Paul Litton

Senior Affiliates,

Dean, MU School of Law, littonp@missouri.edu
Paul Litton was named permanent dean of Mizzou Law in May 2023 after serving as interim dean since July 2022. He joined the Mizzou faculty in 2006. He received a JD and PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied through the University’s Joint Program in Law and Philosophy, and was awarded the Lynn Lukens Moore Prize in Jurisprudence by the Law School. He was law clerk to Chief Justice Deborah T. Poritz of the New Jersey Supreme Court, serving a second term as the Court’s death penalty law clerk. From 2004 to 2006, he was a fellow in the Department of Clinical Bioethics within the National Institutes of Health.

Dean Litton’s research primarily focuses on moral philosophy and criminal law theory, with a particular focus on the capacities required for agents to be fairly held morally and criminally responsible for their conduct. He also has published multiple papers in bioethics, with a focus on ethical issues for health care professionals outside the medical care context. His work appears in peer-reviewed journals across disciplines, as well as in traditional law reviews.

From 2010-12, Dean Litton co-chaired the Missouri Death Penalty Assessment Team, assembled by the American Bar Association to study and make recommendations regarding the laws and practices of Missouri’s capital system. The team included retired and active judges, former prosecutors and defense counsel, and academics with diverse views about the capital punishment. Its report, published in March 2012, can be found here.

Dean Litton has twice received the School of Law’s Shook Hardy & Bacon Award for Excellence in Research and has also been recognized for teaching, receiving the Gold Chalk Award from the University’s Graduate Professional Council and the Husch Blackwell Distinguished Faculty Award for Teaching. Professor Litton teaches Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Death Penalty Law, Jurisprudence, and Bioethics & Law.

From 2015 to 2022, Dean Litton served as Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development at the School of Law. He also was Director of the Office of Academic Integrity within the Office of the Provost from 2017 to 2022.

Ferris Lupino

Ferris Lupino

PostDoctoral Fellows,

Postdoctoral Fellow in Political Thought & Constitutionalism, falgk6@missouri.edu
Ferris Lupino holds a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Washington and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from Brown University. His manuscript project, American Stasis: Conflict, Order, and Leadership in Black Political Thought looks to the canon of black political thought to find ways of rethinking democratic politics and conflict and outlines how post-civil rights thinkers’ uses of classical materials provide alternatives to the assimilationist and separatist paradigms in US racial politics. From 2020-2021, he taught as a Lecturer at Seattle University. He joins the Kinder Institute as a Postdoctoral Fellow in American Political Thought and Constitutionalism.

Bailey Martin

Bailey Martin

Bailey Martin is a junior studying history and constitutional democracy. In addition to being involved with the Kinder Institute, Bailey serves the students of the UM System as Legislative Director of the Associated Students of the University of Missouri, advocating for legislation that would benefit students in Jefferson City. Bailey’s academic interests center around public history and making academia accessible and engaging to a wider public audience, a passion currently being exercised with two fellow History Department students via the campaign to save Read Hall alongside two of my fellow History Department students. Bailey hopes to pursue a master’s in history upon graduating from the University of Missouri in May of 2023.

Bailey Martin

Bailey Martin

Atlantic History M.A. Cohort,

Originally from Salem, MO, Bailey Martin graduated from the University of Missouri-Columbia in May of 2023 with her B.A. in History and Constitutional Democracy, along with minors in Women’s and Gender Studies and Black Studies. She is the 2023 recipient of the Kinder Institute’s Exceptional Undergraduate Award. While pursuing the M.A. in Atlantic History and Politics, Bailey will assist with educational programming for the Kinder Institute’s Democracy Lab for first-year students. Her academic interests include the politics of slavery in the British West Indies, gender and class dynamics in Atlantic slave societies, and public history. Bailey also serves as the Executive Director of the Associated Students of the University of Missouri, a student-led political advocacy organization tasked with representing the needs of the 65,000 students across the UM System to members of the Missouri General Assembly.

Oli McCann

Oli McCann

Undergraduate Fellows, Kinder Scholars,

Oli McCann is a rising senior from Liberty, Missouri, majoring in Constitutional Democracy and English. Aside from participating in the Kinder Scholars program, she is also a 2023-2024 Kinder Fellow, a member of the Kinder Institute Undergraduate Society Leadership Council, and the Membership/Communications Coordinator for the Mizzou chapter of It’s On Us. She is an avid reader of Stephen King books, an avid watcher of Christopher Nolan movies, and an aspiring political speechwriter.

Matt McKeown

Matt McKeown

Alumni Council,

Fellow (2014-2015), Scholar (2015)
Originally from Oak Forest, IL, Matt completed a degree in Political Science from Mizzou in 2016. After his time at MU, Matt worked with AmeriCorps and completed his MPA at the University of Washington’s Evans School of Public Policy and Governance. Matt currently lives in Chicago and works as a Human Capital Consultant with Deloitte.

Adriana Méndez Rodenas

Adriana Méndez Rodenas

Affiliated Faculty,

Professor, School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, mendezah@missouri.edu
Adriana Méndez Rodenas is Professor of Caribbean and Latin American Literatures in the School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures. Trained in Romance Studies at Cornell University (Ph.D) and Duke University (M.A.), she was professor of Spanish and Comparative Literature at the University of Iowa and came to the University of Missouri to direct the Afro-Romance Institute (2017-2021). Professor Méndez Rodenas’ areas of research are transatlantic studies, Caribbean literature, and travel writing. Her books explore the connection between gender and nineteenth-century Spanish American history. Gender and Nationalism in Colonial Cuba: The Travels of Santa Cruz y Montalvo, Condesa de Merlin (1998) retrieves a pivotal figure in Cuban letters, followed by critical editions of Merlin’s Les esclaves dans les colonies espagnoles (2005) and Viaje a la Habana (2009). Transatlantic Travels to Nineteenth Century Latin America: European Women Pilgrims (2014) traces the rise of Spanish American nationalism as documented in women’s travels. Currently she is engaged in Transatlantic Sketches: Fredrika Bremer’s American Journey (1851-1853) and the Iconography of the Plantation, a book on a pioneering Swedish novelist and early feminist whose travels to the U.S. and Cuba during the ante-bellum era show a comparative view of plantation society. Her research has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Huntington Library, the Newberry Library, the Notre Dame Center for Advanced Studies, and the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University.

She serves on the editorial board of Karib-Nordic Journal for Caribbean Studies and Instituto Internacional de Literatura Iberoamericana (IILI).

Email: mendezah@missouri.edu

 

Riley Messer

Riley Messer

Alumni Council,

Fellow (2017-2018), Scholar (2019), Certificate in American Constitutional Democracy, M.A. in Atlantic History & Politics (2020-2021)
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 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 obtained an M.A. in Atlantic History and Politics from Mizzou 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.

Elise Milburn

Elise Milburn

Kinder Scholars,

Originally from Montgomery, Texas, Elise Milburn is a rising junior majoring in Constitutional Democracy and History, with minors in Political Science, Latin American Studies, and Spanish. Her studies focus on the geopolitical entanglements of westward expansion and colonization from the 1600s to the early 1800s. During her time as a Kinder Undergraduate Fellow, she analyzed the usage of New Orleans as a political bargaining chip that would ultimately open the West to the United States. Outside of the Kinder Institute, Elise is an active member of SALT company and Anthem church. Post-graduation, she hopes to receive her M.A. in Atlantic History & Politics before applying to Ph.D. programs on the East Coast.

Jeffrey Milyo

Jeffrey Milyo

Affiliated Faculty,

Professor and Chair, Department of Economics, milyoj@missouri.edu
Jeffrey Milyo is Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri and senior fellow at the Cato Institute in Washington, DC. He earned a Ph.D. in Economics from Stanford University and served on the faculty of Tufts University and the University of Chicago before coming to MU in 2004. Professor Milyo teaches courses in political economics, law and economics, health economics, and the economics of discrimination. Professor Milyo’s research interests include American politics and public policy evaluation, and his recent work investigates the efficacy of campaign finance reforms, the effects of voter ID laws, disparities in policing and sentencing, and the causes and consequences of political corruption.

S. David Mitchell

S. David Mitchell

Senior Affiliates,

Ruth L. Hulston Professor of Law, Director, Michael A. Middleton Center for Race, Citizenship, and Justice, mitchellsd@missouri.edu
Professor S. David Mitchell is an interdisciplinary scholar, Director of the Michael A. Middleton Center for Race, Citizenship and Justice, and Ruth L. Hulston Professor of Law. He examines the criminal justice system using a sociological lens, specifically focusing on the collateral consequences of sentencing; ex-offender reentry and reintegration; and felon disenfranchisement. His other scholarship includes articles on zero-tolerance policies and the retroactive application of laws. He has served on numerous academic and public panels and been interviewed and quoted in a variety of news outlets.

He joined the University of Missouri School of Law faculty in 2006. Prior to joining the legal academy, he served as a law clerk to the Honorable Andre M. Davis, formerly of the U.S. District Court, and as a Scholar in Residence in the Sociology Department at the University of Colorado in Boulder. He is an affiliate faculty member of the MU Black Studies and the Kinder Institute on Constitutional Democracy. He is also a member of the graduate faculty of the Sociology Department. He has served as the Chair of the University of Missouri System on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Task Force and the University of Missouri Faculty Advisory Council for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

He is a member of the American Law Institute. He is a member of the Missouri State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, serving as Chair from 2016-2017, and has served as a Missouri Supreme Court Faculty Fellow. He has been recognized for his teaching and service as a recipient of the Gold Chalk Award; the Legion of Black Collegians Minority Faculty and Staff Appreciation Award; the 2014-2015 Lloyd L. Gaines Scholarship Banquet Honoree; the MU President’s Community Engagement Award; and the Missouri Lawyer’s Media Diversity and Inclusion Award. He was also recently inducted into the Rollins Society at the University of Missouri.

Nicole Monnier

Nicole Monnier

Senior Affiliates,

Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies, MU College of Arts & Science, monniern@missouri.edu
Nicole Monnier is the Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies in the MU College of Arts & Science. She has taught a range of courses, from elementary Russian to graduate seminars, and many others in between. A common thread through all of her courses is the intersection of literature, culture, and history; increasingly, they are also geared to promote undergraduate and graduate student career readiness, so that students graduate with demonstrable skills in critical thinking and problem-solving; oral and written communications; and intercultural fluency.

Her primary area of specialization is mid-19th century Russian prose and criticism. In recent years, she’s shifted her attention to the late end of the 19th century and the works of Anton Chekhov in particular.

Sara Scholes Morgan

Sara Scholes Morgan

Advisory Board,

Sara has been involved in non-profit, civic, and political organizations for over fifty years, in seven different cities, including Kansas City and Washington, D.C., and four different states (MO, VA, FL, TX). She is the co-founder and past president of the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, which opened in September 2001, and currently serves on its board of directors. In addition to serving on the Advisory Board for the Kinder Institute, she is on the board of the Houston Grand Opera and The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and is a Life Trustee and board member of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. Sara is also a past board member and Life Trustee of the American Craft Council and has served on the boards of the Children’s Museum of Houston and Girls, Inc., among other organizations.

Sara and Bill Morgan have been married for 53 years and have two children, Catherine and Mike, who is married to Chrissi. They have three grandchildren, Emma (21), Will (18), and Kate (15). Sara is a graduate of the University of Missouri with a degree in Political Science.

Sophia Myers

Sophia Myers

Atlantic History M.A. Cohort,

Sophia Myers graduated from Mizzou in the Spring of 2023 with a B.A. in Political Science and a B.A. in Constitutional Democracy. Throughout her time at MU, she engaged in many international programs internationally as she pursued knowledge regarding the interactions of communities abroad. Outside of her studies, Sophia enjoys traveling, meeting up for coffee, hiking, and serving the community through various non-profits in the area.

Marcus P. Nevius

Marcus P. Nevius

Kinder Institute Faculty,

Kinder Institute Associate Professor of Slavery and Atlantic World History, Associate Professor of History, mpnevius@missouri.edu
Marcus P. Nevius is Associate Professor of Slavery and Atlantic World History at the Kinder Institute on Constitutional Democracy, jointly appointed in the Department of History. He leads undergraduate and graduate seminars in topics of slavery, the Revolution, Confederation, and Early Republican periods in the early United States, and seminar topics in the history of the African diaspora in the Atlantic world.

Nevius is the author of City of Refuge: Slavery and Petit Marronage in the Great Dismal Swamp, 1763-1856 (University of Georgia Press, 2020). He has also published “New Histories of Marronage in the Anglo-Atlantic World and Early America,” in History Compass, and “Global Warfare, Conspiracy Scares, and Slave Revolts in a World of Fear,” Review of Books, in the William and Mary Quarterly. He has published book reviews in Slavery and Abolition, the Journal of African American History, the Journal of Southern History, and H-Net Civil War.

Nevius’ work has been supported by research fellowships granted by the William L. Clements Library at the University of Michigan; the Special Collections Research Center of the Earl Gregg Swem Library at the College of William and Mary; the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington at Mount Vernon; and the Virginia Museum of History and Culture in Richmond.

Nevius holds the Ph.D. in history from The Ohio State University, and the B.A. and M.A. in history from North Carolina Central University.

Grace Nielson

Grace Nielson

Grace Nielson is a junior from Joplin, Missouri, studying Social Work. With a passion to uplift survivors of domestic and sexual violence, Grace serves as a Residential Victim Advocate at True North, a Peer Educator with the RSVP center, and as a coordinator for MU’s chapter of It’s on Us. Currently, Grace works at a tour guide with MU’s Tour Team, serves as the undergraduate representative on the Status of Women’s Committee, and as a student assistant for the Congressional Research Institute for Social Work and Policy. After graduation, Grace plans to obtain her Master’s in Social Work with an emphasis in Public Policy and Administration in hopes to spend her career creating legislation that further advocates for survivors.

Rigel Oliveri

Rigel Oliveri

Affiliated Faculty,

Isabelle Wade and Paul C. Lyda Professor of Law, MU School of Law, oliverir@missouri.edu
Professor Rigel Olvieri is a nationally recognized expert on fair housing law. Her scholarship focuses on housing discrimination, zoning and property rights, and sexual harassment. Her published work has appeared in a number of prestigious journals and been cited by state and federal courts. She is the co-author of a casebook, Sexual Harassment Law: Cases, History, and Practice, and co-editor of The Legal Guide to Affordable Housing Development. She has received numerous awards for public service.

Professor Oliveri teaches Constitutional Law, Fair Housing, Employment Discrimination, and Civil Procedure at the MU Law School, where she joined the faculty in 2004 and served as Associate Dean fir Research and Faculty Development from 2009 until 2015. She currently serves as Commissioner for the Columbia Housing Authority and on the Board of Mid-Missouri Legal Services.

Prior to joining the MU Law faculty, Professor Oliveri served as a trial attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice in the Civil Rights Division, Housing and Civil Enforcement Section. She litigated and tried a number of significant cases involving housing discrimination and sexual harassment and housing. In 2003, she was awarded a Special Commendation from the Attorney General for outstanding service.

Professor Oliveri obtained her BA from the University of Virginia, where she was inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa society and graduate with Highest Distinction. She obtained her JD from Stanford Law School, where she was Articles Editor for the Stanford Law Review and was elected to the Order of the Coif. She clerked for the Honorable Stephanie K. Seymour, of the United States Court of Circuit Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, in Tulsa, OK.

Nico Orantes

Nico Orantes

Kinder Scholars,

Nico Orantes is a rising senior at Mizzou, pursuing degrees in Economics and Strategic Communications. A practicing Catholic, Nico has an abiding interest in studying theology and Church history. After his time at Mizzou, he plans to return to his hometown of Nashville, TN, to work for the state and cheer on the Nashville Soccer Club.

Cristian Paladi

Cristian Paladi

Kinder Scholars,

Cristian Paladi is a rising junior from Chisinau, Rep. of Moldova. He is pursuing a double major in Political Science and Economics, with a minor in American Constitutional Democracy. He is also an Academic Coach at the Student Success Center and enjoys an array of extracurricular activities including calisthenics, chess, cycling, running, and reading. As someone who enjoys history and geography, Cristian is passionate about world affairs and political trends. Regarding fun activities, being active while listening to music is unrivaled.

Jeffrey L. Pasley

Jeffrey L. Pasley

Kinder Institute Faculty,

Kinder Institute Chair of Early American History, Professor of History, pasleyj@missouri.edu
Jeffrey L. Pasley is Professor of History and Journalism, Frederick A. Middlebush Chair of History, and the Kinder Institute Chair in of Early American History. A graduate of Carleton College, he was a reporter-researcher for The New Republic and a speechwriter for Al Gore’s 1988 presidential campaign before entering academia. He completed his Ph.D. in the History of American Civilization at Harvard University and taught at Florida State University before coming to Missouri in 1999. His teaching and research focus on American political culture between the American Revolution and the Civil War. Professor Pasley is co-editor of Beyond the Founders: New Approaches to the Political History of the Early American Republic (2004) and author of “The Tyranny of Printers”: Newspaper Politics in the Early American Republic (2001) and The First Presidential Contest: The Election of 1796 and the Beginnings of American Democracy (2013), the latter of which was named a finalist for the prestigious George Washington Book Prize.

Hannah Paul

Hannah Paul

Affiliated Faculty,

Assistant Professor, Truman School of Government & Public Affairs, hannah.paul@missouri.edu
Dr. Hannah Paul joined the Truman School of Government and Public Affairs as an Assistant Professor in 2022. She studies comparative political behavior, the politics of immigration, and political representation. She has a special interest in time series and pooled times series analysis. Her current research interests focus on immigrant-origin political behavior, particularly refugees and asylum-seekers, as well as the effects of women’s representation. Her methodological research focuses on the implementation of models for pooled time series data in political science. Her work has been published in journals such as Political Science Research and Methods, Polity, Social Science Quarterly, and Legislative Studies Quarterly. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from University of Colorado Boulder.

Greg Pekurney

Greg Pekurney

Kinder Scholars,

Greg Pekurney is a rising junior from North Richland Hills, Texas. He is majoring in Constitutional Democracy (U.S. & the World Concentration Area) and History, with minors in Political Science and Latin American Studies. He is actively involved around campus, serving as a Justice for the Residential Halls Association and as a TA for the Amish Communities class in the Peace Studies Department. In his free time, Greg likes to run, hike, watch sports, and build the occasional LEGO set when available. After completing his undergraduate studies, Greg plans on joining the Kinder Institute M.A. in Atlantic History & Politics before starting work in historical research and museum education.

Greg Pekurney

Greg Pekurney

Undergraduate Fellows,

Greg Pekurney is a junior from North Richland Hills, Texas, majoring in Constitutional Democracy (U.S. & the World Focus) and History, with minors in Political Science and Latin American Studies. Active on campus, he serves as a Justice for the Residential Halls Association and works as a TA for the Amish Communities class on campus. In his free time, Greg likes to run, hike, watch sports, and build the occasional LEGO set when available. After completing his undergraduate studies, Greg plans on joining the Kinder Institute M.A. on Atlantic History & Politics before starting work in historical research and museum education.

Jordan Pellerito

Jordan Pellerito

Staff,

Program and Multimedia Marketing Coordinator, pelleritoj@missouri.edu
Jordan Pellerito holds B.A.s in History and Political Science, an M.A. in History, and Ph.D. candidacy in History from the University of Missouri. In addition to programming and marketing, she is the instructor-of-record for the Kinder Institute Democracy Lab course and the Kinder Scholars D.C. Summer Program. Jordan is currently writing a dissertation on public history in the antebellum United States and completing a certificate in Digital Public Humanities from George Mason University. Her research interests include: popular representations of history, the intersection of social media and history, space/place, and museum theory.

Sam Peterson

Sam Peterson

Sam Peterson is a sophomore from Joplin, Missouri, studying Economics and Political Science. He is an exec member of MU club climbing, a mathematics tutor, an undergraduate economics researcher, and a Stamps Scholar. He is interested in the clever application of economic models, the history of politics and economy, and anything vaguely literary. Sam enjoys climbing really tall rocks, listening to cacophonous folk music, and reading whatever you suggest to him. He ultimately hopes to pursue a PhD and do meaningful civil service work on development economics or macro.

Aidan Pittman

Aidan Pittman

Undergraduate Fellows,

Aidan Pittman is a junior from Kansas City, Missouri, majoring in Journalism with interests in discussing, writing about, and reporting on film and politics. He is currently a reporter for the Columbia Missourian, a staff writer for Midwestern Citizen, and a screening committee member for the 2024 True/False Film Festival. On campus, he serves as the Social Chair of the Missouri Debate Union and is a member of Mizzou Model United Nations. In his free time, Aidan enjoys catching movies at Ragtag Cinema, listening to Talking Heads, and going for walks when the weather cooperates.

Haley Proctor

Haley Proctor

Kinder Institute Faculty,

MU Law and Kinder Institute Visiting Fellow in Constitutional Litigation
Haley Proctor joins the Kinder Institute and MU Law School as a jointly-appointed Visiting Fellow in Constitutional Litigation after having practiced law for seven years at Cooper & Kirk, PLLC, where she specializes in constitutional litigation and will remain of counsel. She previously served as a law clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas on the United States Supreme Court and for Judge Thomas B. Griffith on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Her research focuses on civil procedure and constitutional law, and specifically on the rules that allocate and guide decision-making. She graduated from Yale Law School in 2012, and from Yale College, magna cum laude, in 2009.

Michael Rashford

Michael Rashford

Kinder Scholars,

A rising junior at Mizzou, Michael Rashford is majoring in Political Science and Constitutional Democracy. During his freshman year, he participated in the Kinder Institute Residential College and served as Vice President of the Wolpers Hall student government, and he was part of the Kinder Institute’s Society of Fellows program during his sophomore. In Summer 2022, Michael interned for the Missouri Solicitor General’s Office, working in special litigation. On campus, he plays on the club Ultimate Frisbee team, where he is acting Vice President, and in his free time, he enjoys running and considers himself an amateur barista. This summer in D.C. he will be interning with the House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means.

Jaden Reed

Jaden Reed

Undergraduate Fellows,

Jaden Reed, a senior honors student and Kinder Fellow, moved from the Middle East to the Midwest to pursue study of International Studies-Peace Studies with minors in Middle East Studies, History, Political Science, and French. An American born and raised in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Jaden has found a global community at Mizzou. Last year, she pursued a double presidency, equally committed to revitalizing both Mizzou Students for Justice in Palestine and Mizzou Model United Nations. This year, Jaden is serving as Co-President of the Missouri Debate Union and will be interning at City of Refuge. After graduating, Jaden plans to spend some time reconnecting with her family’s cats in Abu Dhabi before returning to the United States to attend law school where she can continue her passion for immigration policy reform in both the American space and the international community.

Emily Reed

Emily Reed

Undergraduate Fellows,

Emily Reed is a second-year honors student at Mizzou, hailing from Blue Springs, Missouri. She is double-majoring in Constitutional Democracy, with an emphasis in law and institutions, and Philosophy, and pursuing a minor in Spanish. She is involved with a lot of organizations on campus, including Mock Trial, the Missouri Debate Union, the Kinder Institute Undergraduate Society, and the Beta Chi Omicron Honors Society. She is also currently working as a student ambassador for the Kinder Institute. Emily enjoys anything that requires her “to think, whether frivolously, theoretically, or profoundly.” This mostly includes cooking, baking, reading, and writing.

Emily F. Regier

Emily F. Regier

Kinder Institute Faculty,

Kinder Institute Assistant Professor of Constitutional Democracy, Assistant Professor of Political Science, eregier@missouri.edu
Emily F. Regier is an Assistant Professor of Political Science in the Truman School of Government & Public Affairs and an Assistant Professor of Constitutional Democracy at the Kinder Institute. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania and her J.D. from Harvard Law School.

Emily focuses on American constitutionalism, public law, and legal theory. Her research connects prominent models of judicial decision making to different conceptions of democracy. Her work suggests that dominant accounts of judicial decision making in terms of judicial ideology and/or strategic action are too narrow. A fuller understanding of judicial decision making requires attention to the political suppositions of different legal frameworks, including, importantly, their understandings of and orientations toward democracy.

Emily is particularly interested in the development and legacy of the mid-twentieth century institutional-competence-based framework for legal decision making known as Legal Process Theory. She also has research interests in American pragmatism and feminist theory.

Alec Zuercher Reichardt

Alec Zuercher Reichardt

Kinder Institute Faculty,

Kinder Institute Assistant Professor of Constitutional Democracy, Assistant Professor of History, reichardta@missouri.edu
Alec Zuercher Reichardt received a Ph.D. at Yale University and joined the Kinder Institute faculty in Fall 2018 as an Assistant Professor of Constitutional Democracy and an Assistant Professor of History, after spending a year as a junior visiting fellow at the Center for Humanities & Information at the Pennsylvania State University. Prof. Reichardt’s research revolves around 18th century European and Indigenous empires in North America and the Atlantic World, with a project currently in the works that examines the contest for the American Interior in the decades before the American Revolution and maps the development of communications infrastructure over the long Seven Years’ War. Prof. Reichardt’s next project will turn toward the spatial politics of native and Euro-American transportation landscapes, from the colonial period through the rise of the early American state. ​

Maddie Reiser

Maddie Reiser

Maddie Reiser is a second-year Stamps Scholar in the MU Honors College, majoring in Political Science and minoring in Business. Maddie is particularly interested in political conflict, international public law, and human rights law and intends to pursue a law degree in one of these areas after graduation. Maddie is originally from Johannesburg, South Africa, but grew up in Pleasant Plains, Illinois, and served as a Legislative Intern in the Illinois House of Representatives during Summer 2021. At Mizzou, Maddie is Secretary of the Missouri International Student Council, a member of Mizzou’s Tour Team, and an Undergraduate Research Fellow, and outside of academics, loves to read, listen to music, play volleyball, and explore the coffee shops in Columbia.

Sigi Ris

Sigi Ris

Kinder Scholars,

Sigi Ris is a rising senior studying Journalism, with an emphasis in reporting and writing, as well as Political Science. She is interested in both business and government reporting and has previously served as a podcast host and writer for Missouri Business Alert’s weekly podcast, Business Brief. This semester, she also reported on the state government beat for the Columbia Missourian. In her free time, Sigi enjoys listening to Taylor Swift and hanging out with her sisters in her service sorority, Little Sisters of the Gold Rose.

Catherine Rymph

Catherine Rymph

Senior Affiliates, Advisory Board,

Dean, MU Honors College, rymphc@missouri.edu
Before accepting the position as Dean of the Honors College, Dr. Catherine Rymph served as both the chair of the History Department and the interim chair of the Religious Studies Department. A dedicated and celebrated teacher, Dr. Rymph has taught and lectured in the Honors College and directed many honors theses since her arrival on MU’s campus in 2000. In 2018, she was awarded the Gold Chalk Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching.

Dr. Rymph is the author of two books: Raising Government Children: A History of Foster Care and the American Welfare State (2017) and Republican Women: Feminism and Conservatism from Suffrage to the Rise of the New Right (2006). Her research and teaching interests concern women and American politics, public policy, and child welfare, and she is an affiliate faculty member of both the Women’s and Gender Studies Department and the Kinder Institute. Before coming to MU, Catherine Rymph taught at the University of Iowa and as Fulbright Lecturer at the University of Greifswald in Germany.

Cristal Sanchez

Cristal Sanchez

Undergraduate Fellows,

Cristal Sanchez is a second-year student from Rockford, Illinois, majoring in Journalism and Political Science, with minors in Constitutional Democracy and Business. She is the co-founder of ¿De Veras?, an upstarting bilingual news outlet in the Mid-Missouri area. This passion has ignited her to join the MU Communications Department as a research assistant analyzing how news outlets reporting specifically for people of color are building community. At Mizzou, Cristal is also a part of the executive board for both the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and the Association of Latin American Students to advocate for Latino students on campus. When she finds a free spot on her calendar, she tries to take care of her many plants, and enjoys trying different foods from different cultures.

Lily Santoro

Lily Santoro

Visiting Professors,

Kinder Institute Distinguished Visiting Research Fellow, lsantoro@missouri.edu
Dr. Lily Santoro is an Associate Professor of Historic Preservation and History at Southeast Missouri State University, where she teaches courses in early American History and Public History. Dr. Santoro earned her Ph.D. and M.A. in American History from the University of Delaware and completed her B.A. in History at the University of Southern California. She holds certificates in Museum Studies from the University of Delaware and Digital Archives and Records Management from San Jose State University.

Dr. Santoro’s current research explores the discourse of popularized science in mid-nineteenth century African American newspapers. Focusing on discussions of topics such as polygenism and comparative anatomy, this study attempts to expand our understanding of the conversations the Black community had among themselves about scientific racism and citizenship as the politics of race shifted between the 1820s and 1870s. Her previous publications focused on the popularization of science in early national Philadelphia and ideas of national identity in popular print culture such as almanacs and periodicals in the late eighteenth-century Anglophone Atlantic.

Dr. Santoro is also an active public historian with experience as a project archivist, collections assistant, and exhibit curator. In partnership with the Bollinger Center for Regional History, she is spearheading the Southeast Missouri History Gateway project, a digital history project that provides training, consultation, and digital platform to under-resourced cultural heritage institutions to digitize archival collections for public access. She joins the Kinder Institute during AY 2023-24 as a Distinguished Visiting Research Fellow.

Venkatesh Satheeskumar

Venkatesh Satheeskumar

Alumni Council,

Scholar (2021)
Raised in Saint Louis, MO, Venkatesh Satheeskumar moved to Columbia to study Biology at the University of Missouri. Following graduation in 2022, he began a Master’s in Public Health at Washington University in Saint Louis, specializing in health policy. While completing this degree, he is working as a graduate research assistant with the Center for Advancing Health Services, Policy, and Economics Research.

 

Kylie Schmerbach

Kylie Schmerbach

Undergraduate Fellows,

Kylie Schmerbach is a sophomore from Lawson, Missouri, studying Public Policy and Administration and Constitutional Democracy. In addition to being a Kinder Fellow, she is a member of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority and works as a Kinder Ambassador. Kylie also helps out with the Kinder Institute Democracy Lab as a coordinator for the Undergraduate Lecture Committee. In her free time, she is an avid reader and loves exploring all the coffee shops that Columbia has to offer.

Elisha Schoor

Elisha Schoor

Kinder Scholars,

Elisha Schoor is a transferred senior from Kearney, Missouri, studying Constitutional Democracy and Economics. In addition to being a Kinder Scholar, he participated in the Kinder Fellows program during AY 2022-23, authoring an essay that will be published in the Journal on Constitutional Democracy. Elisha is currently President of the Mizzou Undergraduate Society of History and an avid member of the Mizzou Model United Nations club. While unclear on the translation, he hopes to turn the skills learned as an undergraduate into a career serving the public. Outside of school, Elisha loves to play games with friends, listen to Star Wars books, and build virtual railroad lines.

Adam Schwartz

Adam Schwartz

Adam Schwartz is an MU junior studying Political Science and Digital Storytelling, with minors in Journalism and Film. His ultimate goal for his studies is to one day create politically-focused digital media for a news organization. On campus, Adam is in the Mizzou Honors College, a member of Pi Kappa Phi Fraternity, and a part of the Mizzou Esports Media Team, in addition to working for the Campus Activities Programming Board. He also works as the Public Relations Chair for his fraternity, managing their social media pages and community outreach, and on the side, he hosts and produces a weekly entertainment podcast.

Laurel Scott

Laurel Scott

Undergraduate Fellows,

Laurel Scott is a senior at Mizzou, majoring in History, Ancient Mediterranean Studies, and Constitutional Democracy.  Aside from being a Kinder Fellow, she is currently serving on the executive board for our local chapter of the Classics Honor Society, Eta Sigma Phi. Previously, she was on the executive board for Sigma Kappa, a sorority also here at the university. Her future plans are to pursue employment law, with the joint help of her two cats and caffeine addiction to keep her (relatively) sane.

Jay Sexton

Jay Sexton

Kinder Institute Faculty, Advisory Board,

Rich and Nancy Kinder Chair of Constitutional Democracy, Professor of History, Kinder Institute Director, sextonj@missouri.edu
Jay Sexton is the Rich and Nancy Kinder Chair of Constitutional Democracy, Professor of History, and Director of the Kinder Institute. A native of Salina, Kansas, Sexton returned to the Midwest to the University of Missouri in 2016 after spending the better part of two decades at Oxford University in England. He started in Oxford as a grad student Marshall Scholar and worked his way up to being Director of the Rothermere American Institute (RAI) and, upon his departure, being elected a Distinguished Fellow of the RAI and an Emeritus Fellow of Corpus Christi College.

Sexton specializes in the political and economic history of the nineteenth century. His research situates the United States in its international context, particularly as it related to the dominant global structure of the era, the British Empire. His most recent book, A Nation Forged by Crisis: A New American History (Basic Books, 2018), argues that international forces shaped the course of U.S. history during its greatest moments of transformative change.

His other books include Debtor Diplomacy: Finance and American Foreign Relations in the Civil War Era, 1837-1873 (Oxford, 2005; 2nd ed. 2014) and The Monroe Doctrine: Empire and Nation in Nineteenth-Century America (Hill and Wang, 2011). He also has published four major collaborative projects: The Global Lincoln (co-edited with Richard Carwardine, Oxford, 2011); Empire’s Twin: U.S. Anti-Imperialism from the Founding to the Age of Terrorism (co-edited with Ian Tyrrell, Cornell, 2015); Crossing Empires: Taking U.S. History into Transimperial Terrain (co-edited with Kristin Hoganson, Duke 2020); and, also co-edited with Kristin Hoganson, The Cambridge History of America and the World: Vol. 2, 1820-1900 (Cambridge, 2021).

Sexton enjoys working with enterprising students, undergrad or grad, who set their own intellectual agenda. When he is not reading or talking history, he is cheering for KC sports teams and following British politics.

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Quinn Sheppard

Quinn Sheppard

Kinder Scholars,

Quinn Sheppard is a rising junior from Lee’s Summit, Missouri, majoring in Constitutional Democracy and History, with a minor in Political Science. During her time at Mizzou, Quinn has interned with The Home Project in Athens, Greece, and at the State Historical Society of Missouri. Within the Kinder Institute, she has been a part of the Society of Fellows and Residential College programs. She currently conducts research through the Honors College and is an Associate Justice for MSA. During the 2023-24 school year, Quinn will serve as Director of the Mizzou chapter of It’s On Us and be an inaugural exchange student at University College London. In her spare time, she enjoys reading and drinking coffee, and especially enjoys when she can do both at the same time.

Sophy Silva

Sophy Silva

Atlantic History M.A. Cohort,

Originally from Kansas City, Sophy Silva graduated from Mizzou in May 2023 with a dual degree in Business Administration (Management) and Political Science, along with certificates in American Constitutional Democracy and Multicultural Studies. During her time as an undergraduate, Sophy worked with the Missouri State Treasurer’s Office as an Unclaimed Property Department intern and the Mizzou International Trade Center as a market research intern. She also served as a Student Ambassador for the College of Arts & Science, where she currently works as a Peer Mentor. After completing the M.A. program, Sophy plans on attending law school. Outside of her work and studies, Sophy enjoys cooking, fitness, attending concerts, and traveling.

Shanley Silvey

Shanley Silvey

Shanley Silvey is a sophomore from Columbia, MO, double-majoring in Strategic Communications and Spanish. She is the Social Chair for Little Sisters of the Gold Rose, a service sorority on campus, and works in the marketing department for the Missouri School of Health Professions. Shanley worked for the Boone County Clerk’s Office as an election official for the 2020 presidential election and has served in various capacities in other local Boone County elections since 2018. During Summer 2021, she attended a Mizzou Spanish language and culture program in Spain and took classes at the University of Oviedo. Upon graduation, Shanley plans to attend law school or a Master’s program in order to pursue a career as an immigration lawyer.

Olivia Skeans

Olivia Skeans

Olivia Skeans is a third-year student from Republic, Missouri, studying Quantitative Economics. On campus, Olivia is the Head of Internal Relations for Undergraduate Women in Economics and a PLA for the Department of Economics. Outside of school, Olivia loves to do yoga, read books, and keep up with The Bachelor.

Robert Smale

Robert Smale

Senior Affiliates,

Associate Professor and Chair, Department of History, smaler@missouri.edu
Robert L. Smale is Associate Professor and Chair of History at MU. After earning B.A. degrees in History and Spanish at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, he went on to complete his M.A. and Ph.D. in History at the University of Texas at Austin, where he specialized in the study of Latin America. His research focuses on the political and social history of South America’s Andean nations. He is the author of “I Sweat the Flavor of Tin”: Labor Activism in Early Twentieth-Century Bolivia (2010). He regularly teaches courses on the history of constitutional democracy in Latin America and the region’s revolutionary traditions.

Caroline Spalding

Caroline Spalding

Staff,

Kinder Institute Program Coordinator, cspalding@missouri.edu
Caroline Spalding received Bachelor of Arts degrees in Political Science and History from Mizzou in 2016 and her J.D. and Master’s in Public Administration from MU Law and the Truman School of Public affairs, respectively, in 2020.  While in law school, she spent a summer abroad working for the Human Rights Commission in Cape Town, South Africa, conducted research on rehabilitation and intervention programs at the Center for Criminal and Juvenile Justice Priorities at Mizzou, and was also extensively involved in the American Constitution Society and the Equal Justice Law Association. Caroline has been involved with the Kinder Institute for some time: as part of the inaugural class of the Society of Fellows; as Senior Editor for Vol. 2 of the Journal on Constitutional Democracy and Deputy Editor for Vol. 5 of the Journal; and from 2017 as a staff member. Caroline is the Institute’s fiscal officer and MA Academic Advisor, and organizes study abroad programs.

Emerson Sprick

Emerson Sprick

Alumni Council,

Fellow (2014-15), Scholar (2015)
Born and raised in Kansas City, MO, Emerson studied Economics at Mizzou before moving to Washington, D.C. Since graduating, he has worked for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Bipartisan Policy Center, where he is currently a policy analyst. He also earned a Master’s degree in Economics from Georgetown University.

Peverill Squire

Peverill Squire

Affiliated Faculty,

Professor and Hicks and Martha Griffiths Chair in American Political Institutions, Truman School of Government & Public Affairs, squirep@missouri.edu
Peverill Squire joined the Department of Political Science at the University of Missouri in 2007 and holds the Hicks and Martha Griffiths Chair in American Political Institutions. His Ph.D. is from the University of California, Berkeley (1986). Professor Squire previously taught at the University of Iowa and has been a visiting professor at Meiji University in Tokyo, Japan, and a Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer, holding the John Marshall Chair in Political Science at the Budapest (Hungary) University of Economic Sciences. He was senior editor of Legislative Studies Quarterly for many years, has served as chair of the American Political Science Association’s Legislative Studies Section and as co-chair of the International Political Science Association’s Research Committee of Legislative Specialists, and was given the 2018 Career Achievement Award by the American Political Science Association’s State Politics and Policy Section. Professor Squire specializes in American politics and legislative studies.

Mary Stegmaier

Mary Stegmaier

Senior Affiliates,

Vice Provost for International Programs, International Center Director, setgmaierm@missouri.edu
Mary Stegmaier is an Associate Professor in the Truman School of Public Affairs and the Vice Provost for International Programs at the University of Missouri. Her research concentrates on elections and voting behavior in the U.S. and Europe, and has been published in a variety of political science journals including the British Journal of Political Science, East European Politics & Societies, Electoral Studies, Political Behavior, Politics & Policy, Public Choice, and the Annual Review of Political Science. She serves on several journal editorial boards, including the International Journal of Forecasting, Political Science Research and Methods, Electoral Studies, the Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties, and Politics & Policy. In addition to publishing in peer-reviewed journals, her work has also appeared in the Washington Post, the Brookings Institution Blog, the Democratic Audit, and the London School of Economics Blogs.  Dr. Stegmaier has also served as an international election observer with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Albania, Macedonia, Belarus, and Kyrgyzstan.

Austin Stewart

Austin Stewart

PostDoctoral Fellows,

Postdoctoral Fellow in Political History, austin.stewart@missouri.edu
Austin Stewart holds a B.A. and M.A. in History from Cleveland State University and a Ph.D. in Early American History from Lehigh University. He previously served as a Visiting Professor of History and Native American Studies at Northland College in Wisconsin during the 2022-2023 academic year. His teaching interests center on courses in the history of the Atlantic World, Native history, the Revolutionary Era, the Early Republic, and the nineteenth-century American West. Austin’s current research focuses on Native migrations, territoriality, and settler colonialism in the early nineteenth-century West. He is interested in comparative legalities and constructions of property, sovereignty, and identity in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Americas. He joins the Kinder Institute as a Postdoctoral Fellow in Political History.

 

Claire Syler

Claire Syler

Affiliated Faculty,

Associate Professor, Department of Theatre, sylerc@missouri.edu
Claire Syler is an Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre at the University of Missouri and the former Education Director of the Nashville Shakespeare Festival in Tennessee. Her research focuses on applied theatre, the cultural politics of casting, and performance pedagogy, and has appeared in Theatre Annual, Qualitative Inquiry, Applied Theatre Research, and Research in Drama Education among others. With Daniel Banks, she co-edited Casting a Movement: The Welcome Table Initiative (Routledge 2019).

Mackenzie Tor

Mackenzie Tor

Graduate Fellows,

Scholarly Programming Fellow, mltmg5@umsystem.edu
Mackenzie Tor is a History Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Missouri and a Graduate Fellow at the Kinder Institute on Constitutional Democracy. She received her B.A. in History & Italian from Providence College and her M.A. in History from Mizzou. She is currently working on a dissertation which examines how race and racism informed the course of the temperance movement in the nineteenth-century United States. When not hard at work, Mackenzie enjoys reading, crafting, practicing yoga, and cheering on her favorite Boston sports teams.

Dennis Trout

Dennis Trout

Affiliated Faculty,

Professor and Chair, Department of Ancient Mediterranean Studies, troutd@missouri.edu
Dennis Trout is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Missouri. Before coming to MU in 2000, he was Associate Professor of Classics at Tufts University. He received his Ph.D. in Ancient History from Duke University in 1989. His research focuses on the period of Late Antiquity and engages material and visual evidence as well as literary sources. He has been President of the North American Patristics Society and is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Loeb Classical Library Foundation. He is the author of Paulinus of Nola: Life, Letters, and Poems (University of California Press, 1999) and Damasus of Rome: The Epigraphic Poetry (Oxford University Press, 2015). He is also interested in ancient political thought and practice, and he teaches a course on Political Thought in Classical and Christian Antiquity for the Kinder Institute’s Minor and Certificate in American Constitutional Democracy.

Addie Von Drehle

Addie Von Drehle

Addie Von Drehle is a junior from Kansas City studying Constitutional Democracy (emphasis in Social and Political Thought), with minors in Philosophy and Psychology. She works as a server at a local restaurant and is highly involved in medical fundraising efforts on Mizzou’s campus. Addie’s goal is to learn about the why and how of the world in order to best discern what her role might be in improving the life circumstances of the masses. She loves trivia, vintage clothes, crossword puzzles, spending time outside, and listening to music (favorite band:  The Beatles). Addie’s ecstatic for a summer in D.C., where she spent the first seven years of her life, and to re-visit all the Smithsonian museums.

Benjamin Walker

Benjamin Walker

Undergraduate Fellows,

Benjamin Walker is a junior in the Mizzou Honors College, pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Economics and minors in History, Political Science, and Constitutional Democracy. His scholarly interests include political economy, economic history, and the philosophy of everything in between. He is a new member of the University of Missouri Economics Society and a brother of the Delta Chi Fraternity, where he formerly held the positions of President of Associate Members, Health and Wellness Chairman, and By-Laws Chairman. He is also a current member of the Phi Alpha Delta Pre-Law fraternity and interned for the recently elected Boone County Commissioner, Kip Kendrick. In his free time, he enjoys having fun and working out with his fraternity brothers, while staying out of trouble, thinking a little too deeply about the universe, and refining his consumption of caffeinated beverages. He plans on going to graduate school in some capacity after finishing his time at Mizzou and hopefully aimlessly traveling the world in the process.

Kent Waller

Kent Waller

Kinder Scholars,

Kent Waller is a rising junior from Aurora, Illinois, majoring in Political science and minoring in Spanish and History, with particular interest in Latin American history and politics. Kent is a part of the Mizzou Mock Trail Association and has done work for The Association of Latin American Students, and after returning from D.C., he will jump into the Kinder Institute’s Society of Fellows program. He plans to attend law school after graduation, and in his free time, he plays pick-up basketball and explores new restaurants in Columbia.

Kent Waller

Kent Waller

Undergraduate Fellows,

Kent Waller is a junior from Aurora, Illinois, majoring in Political Science and minoring in Spanish and History, with particular interest in Latin American history and politics. Kent is a part of the Mizzou Mock Trail Association and has done work for The Association of Latin American Students. He is also a part of Kinder Institute Undergraduate Society. Kent is currently interning at the State Public Defenders Office and plans to attend law school in the future.

Lucy Washburn

Lucy Washburn

Undergraduate Fellows,

Lucy Washburn is a sophomore from Jefferson City, Missouri, majoring in Political Science and Constitutional Democracy with a minor in History. She is an active member of the Mizzou Baptist Student Union and the Phi Alpha Delta Pre-Law Fraternity and also serves as the Vice President of Public Relations for Pi Sigma Alpha (Mizzou’s Political Science Club). In her free time, she loves hanging out with her friends, watching movies, and drawing. After graduation, she plans to attend law school.

Lillian Williams

Lillian Williams

Lillian Williams is a junior honors student from Wichita, Kansas, pursuing a degree in History with an emphasis in Public History. She is active on campus as the Vice President of the Undergrad Historical Society and as Vice President Administration of her sorority. This school year, Lillian will serve as a research assistant for the Haskell Monroe Collection digital history project, and she previously completed internships with the Supreme Court of Missouri and the State Historical Society of Missouri. In Summer 2021, Lillian worked as the student assistant at the University’s Archives and she continues to work as a Test Administrator for Pearson Professional Center. She is passionate about local history and plans to pursue further education in one of her two interests of law or public history after graduation.

Lillian Williams

Lillian Williams

Atlantic History M.A. Cohort,

Lillian Williams graduated from the University of Missouri in 2023 with a B.A. in History, with an emphasis in Public History, a B.A. in Constitutional Democracy, and a minor in Political Science. She joins the Atlantic History and Politics cohort as the 2023-2024 Santa Fe Trail M.A. Fellow. As an undergraduate, Williams received the Mizzou ‘39 Award, served as President of the Undergraduate History Club, and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. In her free time, she enjoys studying local history, trying new foods, and spending time outdoors.

Blake Willoughby

Blake Willoughby

Atlantic History M.A. Cohort,

Blake Willoughby earned his Bachelor of Arts in Communication at the University of Missouri in 2020, with a minor in Military Science. After he completed his undergraduate career, he commissioned as an Armor Officer for the U.S. Army, where he served as a Platoon Leader and Assistant Operations Officer. Once he completed his military service, he returned to Mizzou to pursue an M.A. in Atlantic History and Politics as well as a J.D. from Mizzou Law School. In his free time, Blake enjoys watching movies, writing, and biking.

Zoe Wilson

Zoe Wilson

Undergraduate Fellows,

Zoe Wilson is a sophomore from St. Louis, Missouri, studying Constitutional Democracy and History with an emphasis in Public History. Besides being a Kinder Fellow, Zoe is a research assistant for the Santa Fe Trail Project, a Democracy Lab Fellow, and a member of both the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority and the Undergraduate History Society. In her free time, Zoe enjoys reading, working out, and going out with friends. She is also a history documentary enthusiast, having watched too many to count.

Callie Woolfolk

Callie Woolfolk

Atlantic History M.A. Cohort,

Callie Woolfolk graduated from Mizzou in May of 2023 with a B.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies. She lives in Centralia, Missouri, where she is a wife to husband, Nathaniel, mother to Liam and Lily, and a military veteran, with a previous career of nearly twenty years as an intelligence analyst. When family life isn’t keeping her busy (and it usually is), she loves to read books of all kinds, draw and paint, have family movie nights, do all sorts of projects with her kids, including having a lot of adventures together. After completion of the M.A., Callie would love to continue on to law school.

Isabelle Wright

Isabelle Wright

Kinder Scholars,

Isabelle Wright is a third-year Mizzou student from Lindsborg, Kansas. She is majoring in Constitutional Democracy, with a minor in Criminology/Juvenile Justice. On campus, she is involved with the Phi Alpha Delta Pre-Law Society, is president of Mizzou Club Quidditch, and is a member of Mizzou’s chapter of Phi Mu, as well as a former member of the Kinder Institute Society of Fellows. She is interested in constitutional law, international relations, and history, and after graduation she hopes to serve in the Peace Corps and then attend law school.

Maria Yepez Damian

Maria Yepez Damian

Maria Yepez Damian is a Mexican American bilingual student from Kansas City, Missouri. She is an MU sophomore pursuing a double major in Political Science and International Studies with emphases in Pre-Law and Latin American Studies. On-campus, she is part of the Association of Latin American Students as well as Chi Alpha campus ministry. Outside of school, she spends most of her time volunteering, reading Beverly Tatum novels, listening to music, and watching Scandal re-runs. Maria ultimately plans to further her education in law and public policy in hopes of pursuing her passion for helping the Hispanic community.

Isaac Yontz

Isaac Yontz

Kinder Scholars,

Isaac Yontz is a rising junior from Columbia, MO, studying government and politics through majors in Constitutional Democracy and Economics. On campus, he was a 2022-23 Kinder Institute Undergraduate Fellow and is the current tournament director of the Missouri Mock Trial Association. Off campus, Isaac enjoys hiking and learning French. Isaac will be a Jumpstart Corps member, primarily serving in Washington D.C.’s 7th and 8th wards, during Summer 2023.

Charles U. Zug

Charles U. Zug

Kinder Institute Faculty,

Kinder Institute Assistant Professor of Constitutional Democracy, Assistant Professor of Political Science, czug@missouri.edu
Charles U. Zug is Kinder Assistant Professor of Constitutional Democracy and Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Missouri. He received his Ph.D. in Government from the University of Texas at Austin. His expertise is in American political development and constitutional theory, with a focus on the American presidency and the relationship between ideas and institutional development. In addition to scholarly articles, book chapters, and popular press writings, he is the author of Demagogues in American Politics (Oxford University Press, 2022) and Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Federal Highway Act (University Press of Kansas, 2024). Among other projects, he is currently writing a book tentatively titled Constructing a Mythology of American Federalism.