Texas A&M Political Science Department Welcomes Six New Faculty Scholars
The Department of Political Science at Texas A&M University’s Bush School of Government and Public Service continues its commitment to academic excellence by announcing the appointment of six outstanding faculty scholars for the upcoming academic year. Dr. Brian Crisp, Dr. Ali Kagalwala, Dr. Michael Kistner, Dr. Robert Kubinec, Dr. Graham Straus, and Dr. Eddy Yeung join the department, further expanding its research expertise in American politics, comparative politics, political methodology, elections, political institutions, and democratic governance.
“These faculty exemplify our dedication to advancing rigorous scholarship and impactful teaching across the discipline,” said Department Head Dr. Guy Whitten. “With their diverse research interests and acclaimed achievements, our students and campus community will benefit enormously from their leadership and knowledge.”
Brian Crisp, an internationally recognized scholar, enhances the department as a Professor with deep expertise in legislative institutions, representation, and democratization. Crisp’s distinguished body of work investigates how election systems, party organization, and institutional design shape policy making and political behavior across Latin America and beyond. His career includes numerous contributions to leading journals, and he is widely respected for mentoring junior scholars and advancing comparative politics as a field.
Ali Kagalwala, joining as a visiting Assistant Professor, specializes in comparative politics, public policy, and political methodology. His substantive research includes examinations of school funding, political party competition, and income inequality. His methodological research includes work on the use of Monte Carlo simulations, models for analyzing data that vary across time and/or space, and the development of new models for partial contestation across legislative districts.
Michael Kistner, joining as an Assistant Professor, specializes in comparative political institutions, elections, and data-driven approaches to studying democratic decision-making. His research explores how electoral rules affect party competition and representation, using advanced methods such as text analysis and structural modeling to unravel the dynamics of political systems worldwide.
Robert Kubinec brings broad experience in computational social science and quantitative methodology. As an Associate Professor with a global research portfolio, Kubinec focuses on authoritarian regimes, democratization, and causal inference, often employing novel machine learning techniques and Bayesian statistical tools. His analysis of institutional change and elite behavior has garnered international recognition and contributed to policy discussions on governance and reform.
Graham Straus, joining the department as an Assistant Professor, specializes in American politics and political methodology. He works on administrative voting data, causal inference, local politics, political geography, and elections. Recent projects include studying the occupational history of city councilmembers and persuasive public health messaging during the pandemic.
Eddy Yeung, joining the department as an Assistant Professor, studies how political communication and elite strategy shape democratic legitimacy under autocracy and democratic backsliding and the psychology of conflict escalation and de-escalation, with a focus on East Asia, the United States, and their interactions. Uniting his scholarship is a broader interest in how elites and mass publics influence one another in the political system, both domestic and international.
All six of these faculty members are listed on the department website at https://bush.tamu.edu/pols/faculty/ and are teaching in the curriculum, reinforcing Texas A&M’s commitment to high-impact research and transformative education.
