Bethany AlbertsonAssistant Professor of Political Science
Research Interests: Political Psychology and Public Opinion
Office Location: Gowen 125
Office Hours: TBA
eMail: balberts AT u DOT washington DOT edu
Website: http://faculty.washington.edu/balberts

Bethany Albertson (Ph.D., University of Chicago), assistant professor, joined the department in 2006. She studies political psychology and public opinion. Her dissertation research examined the use of religious language in political appeals, and used experimental methods to understand the effects of these appeals on political attitudes. This research was supported by the National Science Foundation and the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics at Princeton University. Her substantive research interests include persuasion, ambivalence, implicit attitudes, and race and religion in US politics. She teaches American Politics, Voting and Elections, and Political Psychology at the University of Washington.

Matt A. Barreto
Assistant Professor of Political Science
Research Interests: Political participation of racial and ethnic minorities in the United States
Office Location: Gowen 139
Office Hours: Wednesday 10:00-12:00
eMail: mbarreto@u.washington.edu
website: http://faculty.washington.edu/mbarreto/

Matt A. Barreto is an assistant professor in political science at the University of Washington, Seattle and a founding member of the Washington Institute for the Study of Ethnicity, Race and Sexuality (WISER). He received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Irvine in 2005. His research examines the political participation of racial and ethnic minorities in the United States and his work has been published in the American Political Science Review, Political Research Quarterly, Social Science Quarterly, Urban Affairs Review, and other peer reviewed journals. Matt specializes in Latino and immigrant voting behavior, and teaches courses on Racial and Ethnic Politics, Latino Politics, Voting and Elections, and American Politics at UW. Part of his research agenda also includes public opinion and election surveys, including exit polling methodology. Matt is also an affiliated research scholar with the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute (www.trpi.org) since 1999 and with the Center for the Study of Los Angeles (www.lmu.edu/csla) since 2002. In 2004, he was a co-author of the TRPI/Washington Post National Survey of Latino voters and in 2005, he was co-principal investigator of the CSLA Los Angeles Mayoral exit poll.

Manish Chalana
Lecturer in Urban Design and Planning
Research Interests: Urban Gentrification, Multicultural Planning and Preservation, Equitable Developments, South-Asian Immigration in North American, and Right to Public Parks.
Office: Gould Hall, Room 410

Dr. Manish Chalana holds a doctorate in Design and Planning from the University of Colorado. He also holds a masters in Landscape Architecture from the Pennsylvania State University and masters in Architecture from the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi, India. Dr. Chalana's research focuses on international and multicultural preservation and planning. He is also interested in immigration of South Asians to North America, and their settlement and network patterns. Additional interests include the use of urban open spaces by marginalized communities and the displacement of disadvantaged communities as a result of gentrification in urban areas.

Frances Contreras
Assistant Professor, College of Education
Research interests: affirmative action in higher education, Latinas/os in Ph.D. programs
Office Location: M204 Miller
eMail: frances@u.washington.edu

Dr. Contreras presently researches issues of equity and access for underrepresented student in the education pipeline. She recieved her B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1994, her M.Ed. at Harvard University in 1995, and her Ph.D. from Stanford University in 2003. She addresses transition between K-12 and higher education, community college transfer, faculty diversity, affirmative action in higher education, and the role of the public policy arena in higher education access for underserved students of color. In addition to her research and teaching Dr. Contreras serves on the Boards of the Harvard Journal of Hispanic Policy, LEAP, California Tomorrow, and the Chicana/Latino Foundation.

Gloria Coronado, PhD
Dr. Coronado is a Hispanic epidemiologist who received her undergraduate training at Stanford University. She works as an Assistant Member for the Cancer Prevention Program at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Dr. Coronad is a Co-investigator for several community-based intervention studies taking place in Eastern Washington and New Mexico. She serves as the Principal Investigator on two National Cancer Institute-funded investigations; Increasing Colorectal Screening in Minorities and ESL Curriculum for HBV Testing in Chinese Americans. She has co-authored several publications from qualitative research conducted in Hispanic communities and has long history of mentoring undergraduate and graduate students. She was recognized as a Young Hispanic Leader by the Embassy of Spain. She serves as a board member on two local organizations: CASA Latina and Planned Parenthood of Western Washington.

Laura E. Evans
Assistant Professor of Public Affairs
Research interests: Political Institutions, Urban and Regional Affairs, Race and Ethnicity
Office Location: Parrington 207B
Office Phone: 206.543.8343

Professor Evans's research explores local politics and intergovernmental relations in the United States. She examines the forces shaping regional policy coordination, with particular attention to the effects of racial and economic divisions on interaction between governments.

Her current project examines Native American tribal governments' efforts to build political capacity and to manage relations with other governments--the Feds, states, and localities. She finds that some tribes have developed effective strategies for building capacities and winning successes in regional politics, although racial context strongly conditions results. Ultimately, this study addresses how information and organizational learning matter in politics, and how politically marginalized groups can challenge the obstacles facing them.

Luis R. Fraga
Professor of Political Science
Research Interests: Urban Politics and Policy, Educational Politics and Policy, Race and Ethnicity Politics
Office Location: TBA
Office Hours: TBA
eMail: fraga@stanford.edu

Luis R. Fraga joined the University of Washington as Associate Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement in July of 2007. He is the Director of the Diversity Research Institute at UW, and also serves as a political science professor.

Fraga received his Ph.D. from Rice University. He was a member of the American Political Science Association standing committee on Civic Engagement and Education that co-authored Democracy at Risk: How Political Choices Undermine Citizen Participation, and What We Can Do About It (Brookings Institution Press 2005). He is also co-author of the recently published Multiethnic Moments: The Politics of Urban Education Reform (Temple University Press 2006). He is one of six principal investigators on the Latino National Survey (LNS), the first-ever sixteen state-stratified survey of Latinos in the U.S. It asks questions regarding political attitudes, behavior, and beliefs. This project has received $1.2M in support from major foundations and universities. Fraga is also the principal investigator on the project "Interests and Representation: Ethnic Advocacy on California School Boards," the first-ever statewide study of Latino school board members in California.

Michelle Habell-Pallan
Associate Professor of Women Studies, 2007-present
Associate Professor of American Ethnic Studies, 1999-2007
Adjunct Professor of Music

Michelle Habell-Pallan received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is author of Loca Motion: The Travels of Chicana and Latina Popular Culture (NYU Press, 2005) and co-editor of Latina/o Popular Culture (NYU Press, 2002). In support of her innovative research and writing on the politics of representation and cultural politics of "independent" popular culture, performance art, spoken word, and music, she received a Rockefeller Foundation Humanities Research Award, as well as a Woodrow Wilson Foundation Research Award. Her in-progress manuscript, Beat Migration: Chicano/a Roots/Routes of American Pop Music was recently granted an Associate Professor Research Institute Award by the UW Simpson Center for the Humanities. In addition, she serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Latina Studies.

Habell-Pallan's large scale public humanities projects include American Sabor: U.S. Latinos Shaping Popular Music, a collaboration of the UW School of Music, UW Department of Women Studies, UW Simpson Center for the Humanities, and the Experience Music Project. She serves as Guest Co-Curator of the exhibit, which opens in Fall 2007 at the Experience Music Project in Seattle.

Habell-Pallan teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in women of color feminist theory and methodology, cultural studies and feminism in the Americas, "racialization, gender, and sexuality" in rock criticism, Chicano/a Theater, social movements and popular culture, the politics of pop music.

Habell-Pallan also works with "Why Punish the Children?" a newly formed collective seeking to spread awareness about the traumatic effects of current immigration policy on children of undocumented mothers who are detained or deported.

Alexes Harris
Assistant Professor of Sociology
Research interests: Race and ethnicity, juvenile justice system
Office Location: Savery 206S
Office Hours: Wed & Thurs 2:30 - 3:30
eMail: yharris@u.washington.edu

Alexes Harris is currently an Assistant Professor at the Department of Sociology at the University of Washington. Her degrees in the field of Sociology are from the University of Washington (B.A., 1997) and the University of California, Los Angeles (M.A., 1999; Ph.D., 2002). Her research and teaching areas include the juvenile justice system, race and ethnic theory, qualitative research methods, and social stratification and inequality.

Dr. Harris' dissertation employed both qualitative and statistical methodologies to examine the juvenile court institution and the process of transferring minors to the adult criminal justice system in California. A current project she is working on extends findings from her dissertation to investigate the decision-making of probation officers involved with waiver-eligible cases in juvenile courts. She is particularly interested in exploring any similarities and differences in probation officers' characterization of youth from differing racial and ethnic backgrounds. Another project investigates the association of race/ethnicity, nativity, and gender with use of payday loans, and the impact of payday lending on economic inequality between the middle class, native-born white majority, and minorities and immigrants.

Ralina Joseph
Assistant Professor of Communications
Research interests: race, gender, sexuality, representation
Office Location: Communications 339
Office Hours: Wed 12:30 - 2:30, or by appointment
eMail: rljoseph@u.washington.edu

Dr. Joseph completed an undergraduate degree at Brown University, majoring in American Civilization. She received an M.A. and Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies from the University of California, San Diego. Her dissertation, "New Millennium 'Mulattas': Post-Ethnicity, Post-Feminism, and the Mixed-Race Excuse," investigates how contemporary representations of multiracial African American women are used for neo-conservative political agendas.

She is broadly interested in contemporary representation of race, gender, and sexuality in the United States. Her current research includes an analysis of California's failed "Racial Privacy Initiative" (Proposition 54) alongside "post-identity" performances in Tyra Banks's popular reality show, America's Next Top Model.

Moon-Ho Jung
Assistant Professor of History
Research Interests: Asian American History
Office Location:
Office Hours
eMail: mhjung@u.washington.edu
website: http://depts.washington.edu/history/faculty/jung.html

Tetsuden Kashima
Professor of American Ethnic Studies
Research Interests: WWII American & Canadian Internment sites, Asian American Sociology
Office Location: A-519 Padelford
Office Hours:
eMail: kashima@u.washington.edu
website: http://depts.washington.edu/aes/faculty/tkashima.html

Mark C. Long
Assistant Professor of Public Affairs
Public Economics, Labor Economics, Economics of Education, Race and Inequality, and Applied Econometrics
Office Location: Parrington Hall 209E
marklong@u.washington.edu

Mark C. Long joined the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs in 2004. He holds a doctorate in economics from the University of Michigan (2002). His research focuses on the effects of affirmative action (and alternative) college admissions policies on college entry; the effects of college financial aid on household savings; and his recent work examines the effect of school and college quality on test scores, educational attainment, labor market outcomes, family formation, and other behaviors. He is the winner of The Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management's 2002 Ph.D. Dissertation Award for the Best Ph.D. Dissertation in Public Policy and Management. He has publications in The Review of Economics and Statistics, the Journal of Public Economics, the Journal of Econometrics, and Public Administration Review.

Naomi Murakawa
Assistant Professor of Political Science
Research interests: race, crime policy, American political development
Office Location: Gowen 133
Office Hours: By appointment
eMail: murakawa@u.washington.edu

Naomi Murakawa is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Washington and a founding member of the Washington Institute for the Study of Ethnicity, Race and Sexuality. She is broadly interested in race, American political development, and crime policy and the carceral state.  Her current research projects address how racial and electoral politics affect the proliferation of mandatory minimum statutes, the rise and fall of sentencing guidelines, and the nationalization of crime policy. She received her B.A. in women's studies from Columbia University, her M.S. in social policy from the London School of Economic, and her Ph.D. in political science from Yale University. During the 2006-07 and 2007-08 academic years, Naomi will be at the University of California, Berkeley as a Scholar in Health Policy Research with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Christopher Parker
Assistant Professor of Political Science
Research Interests: Political Psychology, Political Behavior, Race and Politics, Survey Research.
eMail: parker@polsci.ucsb.edu
website: http://www.polsci.ucsb.edu/faculty/parker/index.htm

Professor Parker's recent research centers upon the myriad ways in which war and military service affect race relations. Specifically, he examines whether or not veterans and non-veterans differ systematically in their socio-political attitudes and behavior. More broadly, however, Professor Parker's research agenda focuses on the intersection between race and national identity, and how this combination affects political attitudes and behavior.

Before joining the faculty at the University of Washington, Professor Parker was a member of the faculty at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Parker also spent a year at Grinnell College where he was a CSMP Fellow. He has published in International Security, and is currently working on a book manuscript entitled, "Fighting for Democracy: Race, Military Service, and Insurgency during Jim Crow." He also is the principal investigator for the California Patriotism Pilot Study (CPPS, 2002), a survey that investigates the multi-dimensionality of patriotism. Professor Parker was a recipient of a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellowship, in residence at the University of California, Berkely/San Francisco in fall 2007. Currently, Professor Parker teaches a graduate level seminar in Public Opinion at the University of Washington.

Professor Parker spent a total of ten years in the United States Navy, after which he attended the University of California, Los Angeles. Parker received his doctorate at the University of Chicago.

Hector P. Rodriguez, Ph.D., MPH
Assistant Professor, Department of Health Services, School of Public Health and Community Medicine
Office hours: By appointment
Office location: Health Sciences Annex, Room H-679
Office phone: (206) 685-4460
Email: hrod@u.washington.edu

Dr. Hector Rodriguez researches the determinants of racial, ethnic, and linguistic disparities in health care quality with a focus designing and implementing interventions that can effectively reduce quality differences. In particular, his research has focused on patients' experiences of care. His work has been published in Medical Care, the Journal of General Internal Medicine, the International Journal for Quality in Health Care, Medical Care Research and Review, and other peer reviewed journals. Dr. Rodriguez is currently the Principal Investigator for a study assessing the effects of financial incentives aimed at improving patient care experiences in diverse primary care practices in California. He is also involved in multiple state efforts to further refine patient experience measures, to calibrate the measures to important outcomes of care and to test interventions designed to advance patient-centered care and reduce racial disparities. He received his Ph.D. in Health Policy from Harvard University.

Nikhil Singh
Associate Professor of History
Research Interests: US Intellectual, African American, Ethnicity and Nationalism
Office Location:
Office Hours: On Sabbatical during Academic Year 2006-2007
eMail: nsingh@u.washington.edu
website: http://faculty.washington.edu/nsingh/

Jack Turner
Assistant Professor of Political Science
African American political thought, critical race theory, race in American politics
Office Hours: TBA
Office Location: 131 Gowen
eMail: jturner3@u.washington.edu

Jack Turner is assistant professor of political science at the University of Washington and a member of the Washington Institute for the Study of Ethnicity, Race, and Sexuality (WISER). A 1998 graduate of Amherst College, he received an M.Phil. in political thought and intellectual history from University of Cambridge in 2001 and a Ph.D. in politics from Princeton University in 2006. Turner's research interests include African American political thought, race in American politics, and critical race theory. His work has appeared or will soon appear in Political Theory, Raritan, and Polity. He is working on a book entitled Awakening to Race: American Individualism and Responsible Citizenship.

Adam Warren
Assistant Professor of History
Latin American History
Office Location:
Office Hours:
eMail: awarren2@u.washington.edu