Below is a sampling of some of the projects across disciplines that have been supported by Tenth Decade awards in recent years.

Challenges to Sovereignty, Order and Conflict: Multidisciplinary Working Group

Ryan Griffiths

Directed by political science professor Ryan Griffiths, this Tenth Decade project was designed as a springboard for research on topics such as crime syndicates, global black spots, cyber terrorism, illicit trade, ethno-political violence, civil war and post-conflict reconstruction. With support from a $25,000 Tenth Decade grant, the group ran a three-year speaker series spanning the social sciences that concluded in June 2022 with a workshop on rebel governance at Syracuse University’s Minnowbook Conference Center. That workshop also yielded a special issue for the journal International Politics, to be published later this year, with articles by Griffiths as well as by political science graduate students Heidi Stallman, Falak Nur Hadi and Mansour AlMuaili.

Race, Risks and Responses: Mapping Black Americans’ Responses to Group Threat

Jenn Jackson

Political science professor Jenn Jackson led this investigation into how young Black Americans experience threats—especially policing—differently based on variations in their social location and orientation to power. The project received a $20,000 Tenth Decade grant as part of a call to support research and initiatives that confront systemic racial inequality. In the initial research, Jackson conducted 50 interviews with young Black Americans in the Chicago area, and then followed with a national survey to further generalize these findings across racial groups. The grant funded an additional 50 interviews in ten other cities, including Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, New York City, Syracuse, Houston, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Oakland and Washington, D.C. This work has resulted in Jackson’s manuscript “Policing Blackness: The Political Stakes of Racial Trauma,” currently under publisher review.

Citizenship Across Borders: An International Conference

Carol Faulkner

This project emerged in response to the global refugee crisis and backlash against immigration, and convened scholars for a conference considering the history, politics and laws of citizenship within and across borders. Directed by Carol Faulkner, professor of history and Maxwell’s senior associate dean for academic affairs, and Samim Akgönül, a professor at the University of Strasbourg and an instructor for the Syracuse Abroad Center in Strasbourg, France, where the Citizenship Across Borders conference was held in the fall of 2022. A $16,000 Tenth Decade grant supported the event. Panel topics included naturalization law; the language, literature and perceptions of citizenship; and challenges of immigration between Africa, the Middle East and Europe. Conference participants included Maxwell faculty members Seth Jolly in political science, Azra Hromadžić in anthropology, Amy Lutz in sociology and Chris Kyle in history.

The Impact of State Laws and Policies on the Developmental Disability Mortality Disadvantage: Creating a Comprehensive Database to Allow for Multi-Level Analysis

Scott Landes

The first goal of this two-year project, awarded a $33,420 Tenth Decade grant, was to build and share data on state-level intellectual and developmental disability (IDD) mortality patterns by demographic characteristics. The project team, led by Scott Landes, associate professor of sociology and a faculty associate of the Aging Studies Institute (ASI), completed the database in 2020. Once the database of IDD mortality patterns was in place, Landes and his collaborators, including Maxwell Professor of Sociology and ASI Director Janet Wilmoth and Katherine McDonald, associate dean of research and professor of public health in Falk College, published their first study on race-ethnic disparities in mortality among adults with and without IDD. Last year the Population Reference Bureau, a nonpartisan research organization based in Washington, D.C., released a report based on the data focusing on the impact of COVID-19. While U.S. adults with IDD are living longer, the report found, COVID-19 threatened to erase this progress.

Recent Maxwell graduate Isabelle Lutz is an enrolled member of the Oneida Nation in her home state of Wisconsin. Participating in the “Listen to the Elders” talks and engaging with the Not in the Books team has provided a chance to connect directly with Indigenous leaders in the Syracuse area.

Senior Isabelle Lutz joined a group of fellow Syracuse University students and community members for a short bus ride last fall to the Skä•noñh Great Law of Peace Center—the Haudenosaunee cultural hub on the shore of Onondaga Lake in Liverpool.

The evening’s event, part of a series called “Listen to the Elders,” featured Onondaga Hawk Clan Chief Spencer Ohsgoñ:da’ Lyons speaking about the history of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and sharing the traditional Thanksgiving address. The gathering included an array of Haudenosaunee foods, including three sisters soup made with corn, beans and squash.

“We’re not a people of the past,” Lyons told the audience. “The Haudenosaunee are still the Haudenosaunee. We have our language; we have our songs.”

For Lutz, an enrolled member of the Oneida Nation in her home state of Wisconsin, the Skä•noñh event provided a chance to connect directly with Indigenous leaders in the Syracuse area.

“So much of Native American studies or Indigenous studies can be taught from a historical/past context, when the people, traditions, and cultures are still present and active in the community,” said Lutz ’24, who in May earned a bachelor’s degree in political science with a minor in Native American and Indigenous studies. “So, when there are opportunities to attend and listen to members of different nations share their story and knowledge, it truly complements and enriches my classroom studies.”

The “Listen to the Elders” series began in 2022, organized by a University group called Not in the Books, which fosters a reciprocal learning relationship between the University community and the peoples of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.

The Maxwell School is strongly connected to the effort: two of its faculty members, Aaron Luedtke and Heather Law Pezzarossi, are among its key organizers and it is supported with funding from the Tenth Decade Project, an initiative created 10 years ago in the lead of to the school’s 100th anniversary (see related story: From Sovereignty to Mortality: Tenth Decade Awards Support Research Across Disciplines).

“The Tenth Decade awards have energized and enabled interdisciplinary research around critical themes to the Maxwell School,” says Carol Faulkner, professor of history and Maxwell’s senior associate dean for academic affairs. “‘Listen to the Elders’ engages the Syracuse community around issues of citizenship, democracy and environment. It is a particularly appropriate project for our centennial because it highlights how our present obligations as citizens are tied to our past.”

Members of the Syracuse University Not in the Books team include, from left to right, Diane Schenandoah, Oneida Nation Faith Keeper and the University’s Honwadiyenawa’sek—or “one who helps them”; Heather Law Pezzarossi, assistant professor of anthropology; Jim O’Connor, producer with the special collections team at Syracuse University Libraries; Patricia Roylance, associate professor of English; and Aaron Luedtke, assistant professor of history. (Photo by David Garrett)

Indigenous Ties ��

The work of Not in the Books aligns with the teaching and research of Aaron Luedtke and Heather Law Pezzarossi.

Law Pezzarossi, an anthropologist trained in critical heritage studies, does collaborative work that addresses colonial history while serving the contemporary needs of Indigenous communities, such as the Nipmuc people of New England. Her teaching includes courses on contemporary Native American issues, and on Indigenous museum relations and Native Americans. She is a faculty affiliate in the Native American and Indigenous Studies Program and a member of the advisory board for the University’s new Center for Global Indigenous Cultures and Environmental Justice.

Luedtke, an assistant professor of history at Maxwell since 2022, is also a faculty affiliate with the Native American and Indigenous Studies Program. He focused his graduate research at Michigan State University on the native peoples of the Great Lakes—particularly, in his words, “how they used the authoring of their own histories as resistance to colonial erasure.”

The connections Luedtke has made with Syracuse-area Indigenous communities through Not in the Books and other projects are influencing his research direction. “I have the privilege to build these relationships with Haudenosaunee elders,” says Luedtke, who is of Suquamish and Duwamish descent. “I am going to spend the rest of my career working in tandem with the Haudenosaunee to tell Haudenosaunee stories of resistance.”

The impetus for creating the Not in the Books group initially came from Diane Schenandoah, Oneida Nation Faith Keeper and the University’s Honwadiyenawa’sek—or “one who helps them.” A sculptor for 40 years, she earned an art degree from the College of Visual and Performing Arts in 2011. Her daughter, Michelle Schenandoah, is a graduate of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and an adjunct professor in the law school, and her son-in-law, Neal Powless, serves as the University’s ombuds.

As Honwadiyenawa’sek, Schenandoah offers intuitive energy work grounded in traditional Haudenosaunee culture and teachings to the University community. She also leads events such as a Haudenosaunee welcome ceremony opening the academic year and a monthly full moon ceremony. “I was asked to be a Wolf Clan Faith Keeper in 1988,” she says. “As a Faith Keeper, part of my duty is to share our teachings of how to live in peace though gratitude. We have duties and responsibilities to one another as humans, and to our Mother Earth for all that is provided. Giving thanks on a daily basis is of great importance.”

Through her initial work on campus, Schenandoah began connecting with Native students as well as with professors, such as Luedtke, Law Pezzarossi, and Patricia Roylance, associate professor of English, who teach courses related to Native American and Indigenous studies.

The audience at a recent “Listen to the Elders” presentation at the Skä•noñh Great Law of Peace Center—the Haudenosaunee cultural hub on the shore of Onondaga Lake in Liverpool—included several students from Syracuse University. (Photo by David Garrett)

While students were clearly keen to learn more, many had little background on the impacts of colonialism and the dispossession of Indigenous lands, or on the persistence and current-day realities of Indigenous communities—topics rarely addressed in primary or secondary education. “As Indigenous people, our history is so erased,” Schenandoah says. “Many students see the purple and white flag flying around campus but don’t really know what it is. You’re standing in the capital of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. This is the birthplace of democracy.”

Looking for ways to help fill this gap in knowledge and awareness of the area’s Indigenous heritage and contemporary presence—among not only students but faculty and staff—Schenandoah lit on the idea of connecting the University community with a tribal elder. She contacted Freida Jacques, Onondaga Turtle Clan Mother Whatwehni:neh. Jacques agreed to do a series of lectures, and the Not in the Books team—named by Schenandoah—coalesced to organize these events at Skä•noñh.

In addition to Luedtke, Law Pezzarossi, Schenandoah and Roylance, the Not in the Books team includes Scott Catucci, associate director of outdoor education at the Barnes Center; Jim O’Connor, producer with the special collections team at SU Libraries; and Tammy Bluewolf-Kennedy, a member of the Oneida Nation’s Wolf Clan who leads Indigenous student recruitment in the University’s Office of Admissions.

“The Onondaga are still here, and the Onondaga reservation is minutes away from SU’s campus,” says Luedtke. “We decided as a group very early on that we have a coherent job to do: to educate the campus community that Native peoples are not the mythological, ahistorical stereotype representations that people are accustomed to seeing. Native peoples are just as modern, nuanced, complicated and fully capable of all aspects of humanity as anyone else.”

Hosting the series at a Native cultural center, rather than bringing elders to campus, was important for the spirit and intent of the project. “Skä•noñh is a Haudenosaunee welcome center,” Law Pezzarossi says. “So, it’s the perfect place for people to start learning.”

Building Bridges

Freida Jacques, Onondaga Turtle Clan Mother Whatwehni:neh, is recording her history and experiences for documentary project called “Dropping Seeds” that is supported with a Maxwell School Tenth Decade grant. The first episode is expected to release later this year.

Supported with a $5,000 grant from Maxwell’s Tenth Decade Project and other campus programs, the “Listen to the Elders” series began in the 2022–23 academic year with four presentations by Freida Jacques, who in addition to being a clan mother has served for decades as a Haudenosaunee cultural liaison for educational institutions across New York state and beyond.

During these Skä•noñh events, Jacques led tours of the center and explained how in Haudenosaunee tradition, women choose the clan leaders and men marry into women’s clans rather than vice versa.

In one session, she discussed the enduring impact of the boarding schools run by churches or the federal government that tens of thousands of Indigenous children—including Jacques’ grandfather—were forced to attend between the late 1800s and the 1960s.

In a letter written to support a funding application, Jacques said that sharing her life experiences and knowledge has been fulfilling. “Both grandparents on my mother’s side attended Carlisle Indian Industrial boarding school in Pennsylvania,” she wrote. “My family was affected by this fact. My father was a Mohawk Wolf Clan person and originated at Akwesasne, whose territory is divided by Ontario, Quebec and New York State. …Building bridges between cultures appears to be one of my life’s purposes.”

Onondaga Chief Spencer Lyons continued the series in 2023-24 with presentations on Haudenosaunee traditions and governance. With free transportation available from campus to Skä•noñh, the “Listen to the Elders” series have consistently drawn capacity crowds.

To read the full story, visit the .

The Surveillance Technology Working Group—a mix of city employees and community members—was created by Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh ’05 M.P.A. to address these kinds of policy questions and give the public a voice in the process. In the end, the group voted to approve the license plate scanners with important stipulations. The data can only be used for identifying vehicles and occupants that are part of an active criminal investigation or have been reported missing. It cannot be used for immigration enforcement, and it must be purged after a set time.

Johannes Himmelreich, assistant professor of public administration and international affairs, presents to other members of the working group. (Photo by Jeremy Brinn)

Johannes Himmelreich, a member of the working group, has significant experience in weighing issues of technology and policy. An assistant professor of public administration and international affairs at the Maxwell School, Himmelreich’s research focuses on the ethics and governance of technologies such as self-driving cars, autonomous weapons and machine learning in the public sector. “I think it’s really important work that the mayor has started,” says Himmelreich. “Sometimes, the work of the group is understanding: What is the technology? Is it a surveillance technology? What do we use it for, and what are the risks and trade-offs? This is a way of collaborative, participatory policymaking that has been very successful.”

As autonomous systems and artificial intelligence (AI) continue to advance, the need to understand these new technologies and ensure they are used safely and ethically is more acute than ever.

Himmelreich is among numerous scholars at Maxwell who are rising to this challenge—applying the tools of the social sciences to emerging technologies. He and colleagues across disciplines are conducting important research on everything from drones to robotics to generative AI tools like ChatGPT, helping produce data and shape policy that impacts the American public and beyond. Their scholarship has a symbiotic effect on students, who will no doubt navigate different technologies in their future careers.

Creating a Hub

Syracuse University has been ahead of the curve in focusing on the policy and social impact of emerging technologies, and much of that is centered on an institute housed in the Maxwell School.

About five years ago—amid increasing conversations about autonomous vehicles, robotics and AI—a number of academic leaders began laying the groundwork for a Universitywide initiative focused on the intersection of technology, policy and society. To gauge interest on and off campus, Jamie Winders, a professor of geography and the environment at the Maxwell School and Syracuse University’s associate provost for faculty affairs, met with a wide range of University scholars and outside experts.

University Professor Hamid Ekbia, incoming director of the Autonomous Systems Policy Institute (ASPI), is shown at center with ASPI researchers. From left are Johannes Himmelreich, assistant professor of public administration and international affairs; Harneet Kaur, social science Ph.D. student; Aaron Benanav, assistant professor of sociology; Baobao Zhang, assistant professor of political science; Kate Mays, postdoctoral associate; and Sai Krishna Bolla, who earned his master’s degree from the School of Information Studies in May. (Photo by Jeremy Brinn)

“What became immediately clear was that not only did we have a critical mass of faculty interest across all schools and colleges, but also that we as a University had an opportunity to approach this area in ways that were different from what we were seeing elsewhere,” Winders recalls. “I spoke with about 100 industry leaders, advocates and policymakers, and when they talked about how they saw these fields developing, they kept pointing to the absence of work where technology meets policy, and on wider societal impacts and public perception.”

To address that gap, in 2019, the University launched the Autonomous Systems Policy Institute (ASPI). J. Michael Haynie, vice chancellor for strategic initiatives and innovation, was a driving force, along with Maxwell Dean David M. Van Slyke, who named Winders its founding director. “We had the opportunity to position ASPI as interdisciplinary at its core,” Winders says. “We thought of our existing interests in autonomous systems as three circles on a Venn diagram. We have faculty who are really interested in the technology and design aspects; we have folks interested in the policy, law and governance; and we have many interested in the societal impacts. From the beginning, ASPI sat at the center of that Venn diagram.”

The institute now has more than 60 affiliated faculty researchers, connecting scholars from the social sciences, humanities, computer science and engineering, information studies, law, and communications.

Among the Maxwell faculty who serve as senior research associates with ASPI are Himmelreich, geographer Jane Read, Austin Zwick in policy studies, sociologist Aaron Benanav and political scientist Baobao Zhang. Zhang and Himmelreich, along with colleagues from other universities, are editors of the forthcoming “Oxford Handbook of AI Governance” (Oxford University Press).

One core function of ASPI is to foster collaboration among scholars in different fields. Its Artificial Intelligence Research Working Group, for instance, meets monthly for faculty to share ideas and projects. “I work with computer scientists, experimental psychologists, philosophers and communication studies scholars,” Zhang says, “and it’s great that ASPI exists as a hub to support us.”

In early April, ASPI coordinated a panel of faculty from across the University to tackle a tech issue that has garnered much media attention in recent months: ChatGPT.

Crossing Disciplines

The April ChatGPT panel included a newcomer, Hamid Ekbia, whose addition to Maxwell and the University complements efforts to harness the social sciences and shape decisions about technology.

Hamid Ekbia (Photo by Jeremy Brinn)

Ekbia, a University Professor, takes the helm as director of ASPI this July. In keeping with the collaborative nature of ASPI, Ekbia has long worked across disciplinary lines. Initially trained as an engineer in his native Iran and at UCLA, he was drawn by advances in artificial intelligence and went on to earn a Ph.D. in computer science and cognitive science from Indiana University Bloomington.

Ekbia considers himself a humanist and describes himself as a “poet of technology” in multiple senses—including as an acronym for the policy and ethics of technology, a formulation that is at the heart of ASPI. “I see these as closely intertwined,” he writes on his website For a Better Future, “with ethics guiding our thinking about the potential harms and benefits of technology, and policy giving the thinking teeth and legs.”

A key goal of ASPI, in Ekbia’s view, is to bring the broader population into the conversation about how emerging technologies are used and regulated. “The average user, as they say, does not have much of a voice so far,” he says. “Nobody comes and asks us what technology we’d like to have in our homes and offices and working spaces.”

Governing AI

Bringing the public into the policymaking process is the focus of a major new research project by Baobao Zhang, who is a Yale graduate with an M.A. in statistics and Ph.D. in political science. Zhang is one of 15 scholars from across the U.S. chosen by the philanthropic organization Schmidt Futures to serve in the inaugural cohort of AI2050 Early Career Fellows.

Baobao Zhang (Photo by Jeremy Brinn)

The fellowship provides Zhang with up to $200,000 over two years for multidisciplinary research in artificial intelligence. For the project, Zhang is creating a mini-public of regular citizens to learn about a topic and make policy recommendations. She is working with the nonpartisan Center for New Democratic Processes to recruit a group of 40 participants, randomly selected from the U.S. adult population. Through a 40-hour process planned for this summer, this group will learn about AI systems from computer scientists, ethicists and social scientists and deliberate on how to classify risk from AI systems.

Navigating between the marketing hype about new technology and skepticism or alarm about it can be difficult for citizens and policymakers alike, Zhang says. She cites the example of large language models such as ChatGPT, which can generate remarkably cogent writing from a prompt but also false information—like providing a citation from a book that doesn’t exist.

“The question is, should we classify these large language models as high risk?” Zhang says. “A general-purpose AI system like ChatGPT can do many things; it can play chess with you or write a joke. But it can also generate spear phishing emails. There are also researchers trying to fine-tune it to give medical diagnoses, which is pretty high risk. So as more and more of these general-purpose AI systems come online, we need to think about risk differently. The technology can be used in many sectors where it’s not very risky, but in some cases, it can really cause a lot of harm if not used correctly.”

Expanding Curriculum

Along with fostering collaborative research, ASPI supports opportunities for undergraduate students to delve into the field through courses such as Using Robots to Understand the Mind, Introduction to Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, and Ethics of Emerging Technology. “It is important to shape the research agenda,” Winders notes. “But it’s as important to help produce the next generation of thought leaders in this area, who are excited about issues and also committed to the public good—who want to think about how to innovate in an equitable manner.”

Harneet Kaur, shown speaking with University Professor Hamid Ekbia, is pursuing a Ph.D. in social science and has been involved in research through the Autonomous Systems Policy Institute (ASPI) and the Center for Policy Research, where she is a graduate research associate. Through her research with ASPI, she hopes to learn more about how social policy can be improved with machine learning techniques or artificial intelligence. (Photo by Jeremy Brinn)

Course offerings continue to grow. In the fall semester, Ekbia will introduce a course called AI and Humanity: Charting Possible Futures, designed as an introduction to the field for undergraduates with varying backgrounds—from the arts, engineering, and natural and social sciences to humanities, law and media.

A group of faculty connected with ASPI, led by Zhang, is also working toward introducing an undergraduate minor in artificial intelligence and public policy. The proposed minor would expand the curriculum with courses on topics such as governance and ethics of AI and the responsible design and auditing of algorithms, with the goal of equipping students with the technical and ethical skills to responsibly develop and deploy AI systems.

Policy Impact

The growing body of work on emerging technologies by Maxwell scholars is helping frame issues and shaping policy beyond campus. For instance, Winders was invited to present at a White House summit on developing advanced air mobility systems that rely on automated or autonomous technologies.

Himmelreich, meanwhile, is studying the use of automated risk-scoring tools in unemployment insurance—where determinations about eligibility have a huge impact on individuals’ lives. And Benanav, assistant professor of sociology at Maxwell, argues that the mass job displacement by robots forecasted a decade ago has not materialized and that there are good reasons to doubt the same predictions about AI chatbots—and to focus on using these tools equitably and ethically.

Alumni applying their University instruction and experience to work in careers centered on the rising technology and its implications include Scott Renda ’05 M.A. (IR), who held a series of technology advisory and policy development roles at the U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Executive Office of the President at the White House. Kerstin Vignard ’96 M.A. (IR) is an international security policy professional whose 26-year career at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research included leading efforts to support governments to develop international normative and regulatory frameworks for increasingly autonomous weapon systems. And, Travis Mason ’06 B.A. (PSc), a member of the Maxwell Advisory Board, works in the field of autonomous aviation systems as the first-ever chief policy officer for Merlin Labs.

This story was edited for length and originally appeared in the Spring 2023 Maxwell Perspective magazine. The full version is available on the Perspective’s .

Hugo Brousset

“I wanted to get this international exposure,” he says. “The first step, the way I saw it, was an M.P.A. that had these kinds of international conversations about the topics I was interested in.”

Brousset was drawn to the Maxwell School for its courses focused on social policy and international development as well as its top ranking, faculty scholars and strong alumni network. He completed an M.P.A. in 2013.

“Maxwell gave me an opportunity to test myself and complement my background and training,” he says. “The program is also very focused on practical tools, for statistics or different programs that can help you analyze policy, which combines as well with more theoretical debates around governance. That was definitely helpful for the type of work I ended up doing.”

That work, since 2014, has been with the World Bank. Brousset started with a World Bank consultancy based in Washington, D.C., and then returned to Peru for five years, serving as a social protection specialist for programs in Latin America and Rwanda.

In 2021, he shifted to a position with the bank’s Partnership for Economic Inclusion, again focusing on social protection but with a global scope. He now supervises a portfolio of country teams, many of which are working in Africa and Asia.

Brousset’s relocation to Washington was delayed due to the pandemic—he initially worked remotely from Lima, as World Bank offices remained closed. But as of last summer, he’s been settling again into life in Washington, as well as resuming travel through his work on projects in Malawi and elsewhere.

Hugo Brousset G’13 is shown with project staff and social workers he worked with during a business trip to Guatemala in 2019.

Brousset’s return to the U.S. has allowed him to reconnect with the extensive Maxwell network in Washington. On his way to work at the World Bank recently, he happened to run into Maxwell School Dean David M. Van Slyke, who invited him to a reception that night at the Center for Strategic and International Studies—home of the Maxwell-in-Washington programs. A few hours later, he was happily surrounded by close to 100 fellow alumni.

A few months later, Brousset accepted another invitation: he returned to Syracuse to support Maxwell’s annual M.P.A. colloquium for incoming students.

“It was nice on the personal side, because I hadn’t been back to Syracuse in eight years, but also to have this opportunity to speak to this younger version of myself, when I was about to start the M.P.A.,” he says. “Now that I have this experience working at the bank, I could share that with students who also want to do international development work.”

But she had no idea that it was possible to combine all these interests—until she connected with Gladys McCormick, associate professor of history, associate dean for diversity, equity and inclusion, and Jay and Debe Moskowitz Endowed Chair in Mexico-U.S. Relations at Maxwell.

Zuleika Rivera ’15, right, with Gladys McCormick, associate professor of history and Jay and Debe Moskowitz Endowed Chair in Mexico-U.S. Relations, at the Maxwell School’s inaugural Awards of Excellence event in Washington, D.C., this past April.

“I took a class on modern Latin American history with Professor McCormick, and I was in awe,” recalls Rivera. “I just fell in love with the region, and she became a mentor. When I was trying to figure out which law school I wanted to go to, she helped me find the ones that had human rights programs, for example. It was through her that I discovered there are careers in the human rights field.”

Rivera ’15, who pursued studies in political science and policy studies, also spent a semester in the Maxwell-in-Washington program, which, she recalls, “opened up a lot of doors in terms of learning the lay of the land in D.C. and what are the organizations working on the issues that most interest you.”

Inspired by her introduction to Washington and guided by McCormick’s advice, Rivera got her law degree at American University. She also did an internship in Peru where, she says, she fell in love with a woman for the first time and came to identify as bisexual—an experience that stoked her interest in LGBTI issues.

All these facets of her professional and personal background came together in her current work as senior LGBTI program officer for the D.C.-based International Institute on Race, Equality and Human Rights, a position that involves frequent travel throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.

“We have a very particular focus on combating discrimination based on race, sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression,” she says. “We do litigate cases, but we’re also a capacity-building organization, so we do a lot of training for small organizations on how international protection mechanisms work.”

Rivera continues to stay connected with fellow alumni in Washington, and she regularly shares her own perspective with McCormick’s current students who are aiming to work in the human rights field.

“You can know in theory what a certain career field might be, but if you don’t talk to people who are actually in that field, you really don’t know what the possibilities are or where you can get internships,” she says. “That’s very important.”

Reflecting on her career path, Rivera says she feels strongly that she’s in the ideal location for pursuing her passions.

“If you’re doing political science, human rights law and LGBTI rights as well, D.C. is the place to be,” she says. “It’s a very cosmopolitan, international city. I wouldn’t go anywhere else.”

Danielle Thomsen

“The most obvious counterpoint for the gerrymandering hypothesis is the Senate,” she says. “There’s been no change in district boundaries because they are state borders, but we’ve seen rising polarization.” In the case of big money, Thomsen adds, studies have found that public financing of campaigns has not resulted in the election of more moderates. The same goes for primaries—for instance, open and closed primaries, which are expected to generate different types of primary voters, have produced very similar types of candidates.

So what else could be behind today’s hyperpartisanship? In her new book, “Opting Out of Congress: Partisan Polarization and the Decline of Moderate Candidates” (Cambridge University Press), Thomsen argues that a crucial factor has been overlooked: who chooses to run in the first place. “Moderates who could run for Congress aren’t doing so to the same degree as conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats,” she says. “And if the only people who are signing up to run come from the extremes, polarization is unlikely to diminish.”

Thomsen, a native of South Dakota, began the research behind the book as a doctoral student in government at Cornell and a post-doctoral fellow at Duke. Initially she focused on the partisan gap of women in Congress—to explore why the number of Republican women in Congress, most of whom were moderates, stagnated in the ’80s and ’90s while the cohort of women in the Democratic Party grew. But as she dug deeper, she found that the underlying issue of partisan polarization went beyond gender dynamics—the “hollowing out of the political center,” as she calls it in the book, applied equally to men and women in Congress.

Thomsen, who joined the Maxwell faculty in 2015, notes that Congress has not always been like this. Forty years ago, moderates accounted for more than half of the House and had significant power. “Today,” she says, “with the moderate faction being perhaps 20 people, it’s very difficult to band together and shape the direction of the party.”

State governments, however, are a different story. While some state legislatures are polarized (for instance, in New York, California and Wisconsin), many others are not. In “Opting Out of Congress,” Thomsen uses data sets that became available in recent years to compare the ideology of state legislators with Congress members. She found that 20 percent of Republican state legislators are comparable to recently retired moderate Republican Olympia Snowe; and 30 percent of Democratic state legislators are similar to former congressman John Tanner, a conservative Blue Dog Democrat.

So the problem, Thomsen posits in the book, is not that moderates don’t exist; it is that even if they were elected to Congress, the benefits of the office would be too scant. Today’s moderates, she says, “have virtually no impact on policy, because the party leadership is setting the agenda and dictating the terms of debate. None of the top chair positions or the choice committee assignments are going to moderates. The moderates who are there are leaving, and they’re highly critical of the direction of their parties in Congress.”

All of which begs the question of what, if anything, can be done to create an environment where compromise—and progress—can be made. “If you want to elect people who are less extreme than current office holders, you need to have those people running,” says Thomsen. “How do you get those people to run? Perhaps just as you do with any group that has been historically underrepresented—women, people of color—you put extra resources into them. You recruit them. You give them institutional positions of power, such as a spot on Appropriations or Ways and Means. The party can incentivize certain behavior.” But the odds don’t look good for moderates right now.