This May, Dr. Sharon Lean was selected to serve as Associate Dean for Student Services in the Graduate School. Dr. Lean is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science, where she held the position of Director of Graduate Programs from 2014 through 2018.  She has a B.A. in Latin American Studies with Honors from Brown University and a Masters in Social Sciences from the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales in Mexico. She earned her Ph.D. at the University of California Irvine, where she was an NSF Democracy Fellow. Her area is comparative politics with a focus on Latin America and the politics of democratization in the developing world.    

Dr. Brad Roth, Professor of Political Science and Law, received a signal honor from Wayne State University in 2018 in his selection for The Academy of Scholars. The Academy of Scholars was founded in 1979 and "recognizes distinguished research and creative achievement by selecting for membership the most productive and widely recognized individuals among the university's faculty. Membership in the Academy is the highest recognition that may be bestowed upon Faculty members by their colleagues."

Dr. Ariel Helfer, Assistant Professor of Political Science, has been awarded a highly prestigious National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship. The award carries a stipend of $50,400 and will commence for one year beginning in the Winter semester of 2019. Dr. Helfer joined the Department of Political Science faculty in the Fall of 2017 and teaches and conducts research in the field of Political Theory. He received his Ph.D. in Government from the University of Texas at Austin in the Spring of 2015. His research focuses on political ambition and statesmanship, especially as a theme in classical political thought and Greek history. Dr. Helfer is also trained in quantitative political methodology.    

Communities attempt to learn from experiencing disasters such as Hurricane Harvey, but often those lessons do not lead to policy changes that could reduce future risks.    With the help of a $55,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, Kristin O’Donovan, Ph.D., assistant professor of political science in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Wayne State University, will explore the limits on policy learning about disaster mitigation after a community has experienced a disaster. O’Donovan will also seek to understand why one community may be more vulnerable to a disaster than its neighbor.    

Dr. Nadejda Marinova has received tenure and promotion to the rank of Associate Professor in 2018. She joined the Department of Political Science at Wayne State University in 2012, after serving as a Dornsife College Postdoctoral Distinguished Teaching Fellow at the University of Southern California. She holds a Ph.D. in Politics and International Relations from the University of Southern California which she received in 2011. Dr. Marinova’s research interests include diaspora and migration, Middle East politics, ethnic lobbies in foreign policy, human trafficking and the intersection of culture and gender. She has conducted field research both in Syria and in Lebanon, where she was a research affiliate at the Lebanese Emigration Research Center at Notre Dame University-Louaizé.

Professor Richard Clement Elling died in December of 2017.  He held a professorial appointment in the Department of Political Science at Wayne State University for thirty-five years (1978-2013).  His area of expertise was public administration. Richard produced an exceptional record of research over his academic career.  He authored a book, Public Management in the States: A Comparative Study of Administrative Performance and Politics (published by Praeger [1992]), and co-authored another, The Political and Institutional Effects of Term Limits (published by Palgrave-MacMillan [2004]). He also authored or co-authored seventeen articles and twelve book chapters in some of the most prestigious university presses and refereed journals in our profession.  He served as Chair of the Department of Political Science (1999-2004) and was a driving force in the Graduate Program in Public Administration from 1978 to 2013. 

The Annual Lent Upson Lecture and Reception was held in May, 2018.  The subject of the evening event was “Building Smart and Inclusive Communities: Detroit and Beyond” and the featured speaker was Dr. Karen Mossberger, Professor, School of Public Affairs, Arizona State University.  Karen is a graduate of the Ph.D. program in Political Science at Wayne State University and has achieved great success in her academic career.  At the reception and awards ceremony, Professor Mossberger received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from our Department.  Other speakers at the event were: Garlin Gilchrist II, Founding Director of Social Media Responsibility at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; Marc Hudson, Co-founder and CEO of Rocket Fiber; and Katy Locker, Detroit Program Director for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.   

See a list of the 2017-2018 Political Science Department student achievements.