APSA is pleased to announce the members of the 2023-2024 Class of the APSA-Sponsored Congressional Fellows!
The American Political Science Association (APSA) Congressional Fellowship Program is a highly selective, nonpartisan program devoted to expanding knowledge and awareness of Congress. Since 1953, it has brought select political scientists, journalists, federal employees, health specialists, and other professionals to Capitol Hill to experience Congress at work through fellowship placements on congressional staffs.
Political Science Fellows
Brit Anlar
Brit Anlar will complete her doctorate in Political Science from Rutgers University in 2023. She specializes in Women and Politics and Comparative Politics, with a particular focus on the political representation of young adults, specifically young women from a global perspective. In her dissertation research, she focuses on how formal and informal institutions within Scandinavian political parties shape young women’s political ambitions and access to political officeholding. In addition, Anlar is also the lead graduate researcher on the Young Elected Leaders Project, where she has helped collect data on young adult representation across all levels of office in the United States. She is also the founding member and secretary of the Youth Political Representation Research Network—a network of scholars and practitioners whose aim is to promote young adults’ political representation through research and practice. In service to the discipline, she also serves as the book review editor of the APSA Women & Politics section flagship journal Politics & Gender. She holds a MA in Political Science from Rutgers University, a MS in International Political Economy from Istanbul Bilgi University, and a BS in Anthropology and Women’s & Gender Studies from Montana State University.
Jamie Morgan
Jamie Morgan is a political scientist specializing in social movements and policy. She received her doctorate from the Heller School for Social Policy at Brandeis University, where she continues as a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Economic and Racial Equity. Her research uses a reproductive justice approach to study institutional processes, propose policy, and craft community responses. Embedded ethnographic research for her dissertation traced the intertwined story of reproductive care and contentious politics in a Midwestern community from Roe to Dobbs. She is an instructor for policy analysis and advocacy classes at Tufts University School of Medicine. Insights from her interest in experiential learning have been published in PS: Political Science & Politics. Jamie holds a Master of Public Affairs from Indiana University South Bend. Her MPA research calculated the individual cost of state-level regulation on abortion seekers. Before her doctoral studies, she served the City of South Bend as senior staff in the Office of Mayor Pete Buttigieg. She managed policy, special projects, and legislative affairs with a portfolio emphasis on health and human services. As a community advocate, Jamie instituted the annual South Bend Pride festival and helped open the only independent abortion clinic in Northern Indiana.
Haley Norris
Haley Norris (they/them) is a political scientist whose research and teaching focus on gender and sexuality in politics. Haley is interested in the ways that political institutions hinder the representation of marginalized groups and the strategies that representatives employ to overcome these barriers. Their research engages with queer, trans, and feminist epistemologies. Current research projects include an analysis of LGBTQ politics in the United Kingdom, a study of LGBTQ caucuses in national legislatures, and the pedagogy of queer theory. They are excited to learn more about the day-to-day of Congress and hope to make a positive impact on policy for queer and trans people.
They have taught courses in both Political Science and Gender & Sexuality Studies on LGBTQ+ politics, women and American politics, gender and comparative politics, and queer and feminist theory.
Haley is completing their PhD in Political Science at Rutgers University and holds a B.A. in International Relations and French from Tulane University. Prior to their position as a Congressional Fellow, Haley was a Visiting Instructor at Bryn Mawr College.
Will Smith
Will Smith is a political scientist serving as an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow and an Oberlin College Research Associate for the 2023-2024 academic year. Will completed his Ph.D. in the Department of Politics at Princeton University in 2022 and most recently served as a visiting assistant professor at Oberlin College, where he taught a range of courses on American politics, with a focus on American political institutions. Will’s research focuses primarily on voter and legislator behavior. In addition to his Ph.D., Will holds an M.A. in Politics from Princeton University and a B.A. in Political Science, Economics, and Mathematics with general honors and political science departmental honors from the University of Miami.
Journalism Fellows
Kara Kennedy
Kara Kennedy is a staff writer at The Spectator World, the US wing of the world’s oldest magazine. She studied for a master’s in journalism at Cardiff University before going on to work at British tabloid The Daily Express, before moving to The Daily Telegraph and then The Spectator World. Kara is originally from Wales but now lives in London.
Ryan McDonald
Ryan McDonald is a freelance journalist based in Southern California. He has written magazine stories about the search for a missing woman with Alzheimer’s Disease, and ethnographic research approaches in the opioid epidemic. He previously spent five years as a reporter with the Easy Reader, a community newspaper serving coastal areas of Los Angeles County. In his time there, he wrote extensively about local government, including attempts to address the region’s housing crisis, and the environmental impacts of a proposed seawater desalination plant. He has also covered the intersection of local and national politics, and once spent a week in Washington, D.C. shadowing a member of Congress for a magazine profile. Along with being a journalist, Ryan is an attorney and a member of the California State Bar. He clerked at the Los Angeles County Public Defender’s Office. He speaks Spanish and has done pro bono work on immigration matters in Texas and California. He earned his law degree from the University of Southern California Gould School of Law and his bachelor’s degree from UC Berkeley.
