Political Science PhD grads return to MSU for 2025 Alumni Conference
November 18, 2025 - Karessa Weir
More than a dozen MSU Political Science doctoral alumni returned to East Lansing to share their experience, expertise and advice with current PhD students.
The day-long event included paper panels in the subfields of American Politics and Public Policy, Comparative Politics and International Relations, and Judicial Politics; a Professionalization/Career Panel discussion; and a chance for PhD students to present their work to the alums.
]“We have graduates here at every career stage with jobs in academia, government and private sector,” said Graduate Program Director Dr. Ian Ostrander as he opened the event Friday Nov. 7. “There is a lot of brain power here.”
PhD candidate Paige Haight helped organize the conference, which included alumni who graduated between 2002 and 2025. She was most interested in how the alumni would interact with current students.
“It seemed there was interest on both ends to learn about each other's work, and I think that was the most successful part of the conference. The engagement was really good to see, and it looked like students and alumni were enjoying themselves!” Haight said.
The students and alumni mingled and shared stories, and students had the chance to pitch ideas and get feedback from the alumni.
“It definitely didn’t feel like a conference, which is a good thing,” Haight said. “There was a good mixture of activities to keep me engaged.”
The afternoon included a Professionalization/Career Panel with Dr. Chris Bonneau (University of Pittsburgh), Dr. Mircea Lazar (Michigan Department of Health and Human Services), Dr. Matthew Kirwin (U.S. State Department and George Washington University) and Dr. Rachel Spooner (Hope College).
Bonneau, who is currently the chair of the Spanish/Portuguese Department at Pitt, outlined the current state of academics with the graduate students, and advised them to find a tenure-track position with good work-life balance.
A good department will support every aspect of your life, he said.
“You should know that everyone in your department wants you to get tenure and are willing to work with you,” Bonneau said. “Good chairs will advocate for you but you need to let them know what you need.”
Lazar, the most recent graduate on the panel, has started his own consulting firm working in the area of public health. He followed this track because it allowed him to have more freedom to collaborate with others and have a more immediate, direct impact.
“I created a dashboard where drug overdoses could be tracked and it was available to be used the next day,” Lazar. “This gives me the ability to directly affect communities and people’s health.”
Kirwin joined the U.S. Department of State after working with Afrobarometer. He advised students to get a background check if they are interested in going into federal government work, as well as to study a variety of languages.
“It’s been a great career – all the opportunities and trainings I received served me well,” he said.
As a professor at a small faith-based institution, Spooner shared a different view of academic life.
“There is very little turnover here. People don’t leave until retirement,” she said, advising students interested in teaching to have a strong grasp of their teaching pedagogy.
Their discussion was well received by current PhD candidates, who are currently searching for professional positions.
“It was great to reconnect with department alumni from different walks of life. The career panel was a highlight, with speakers from academia, government, and industry sharing their insights. They emphasized the importance of having a life outside academia, being true to yourself, not competing with others, remembering that the job won’t love you back, and understanding that your work isn’t a referendum on who you are," said PhD candidate Kelechi Amakoh.
“The informal conversations over dinner also provided great insight into how our alumni are making an impact in diverse areas.”
The conference concluded with PhD poster presentations and speed pitches by the students to the alumni. It was put on with funds that the Department received upon winning the MSU Outstanding Graduate Program Community Award for 2025.
“This has been years in the making,” he said. “It began during COVID, when we weren’t able to celebrate our graduates in-person. So, this is part of recognizing them. We hope to make this effort permanent.”
The American Politics and Public Policy panel presentations included:
- Dr. Bob Lupton (University of Connecticut) “Dimensionality and Constraint in American Federal Spending Attitudes”
- Dr. Josh Koss (Eastern Michigan University) “Putting the “Bully” in the Bully Pulpit: President Trump’s Congressional Purge Through Twitter”
- Dr. Davia Downey (University of Memphis) “City Charter Impacts on Black Empowerment: A Study of City Charter Change in Memphis, Tennessee”
The Comparative Politics and International Relations panel included:
- Dr. Shane Singh (University of Georgia) “Winning Isn’t Everything: Parsing the Effects of Voting, Victory and Loss on Satisfaction with Democracy
- Drs. Alejandra Lopez Villegas (Lake Forest College) and Angie Torres-Beltran “Gender Reforms and Backlash: Institutional and Individual Dynamics of Violence Against Women in Latin America”
- MSU PLS PhD student Sophie Sunderland “Served Daily: Everyday Political Control in Authoritarian Regimes.”
- Dr. Elizabeth Lane (North Carolina State University) “The Court in Their Own Words: Open-ended Attitudes on the Supreme Court)
- Drs. Jonathon King and Jessica Schoenherr (University of Georgia) Racial and Ethnic Diversity in Judicial Nominations”
- MSU PLS PhD candidate Matthew Cota “The Court Under Threat: Hostility to Judicial Legitimacy and its Effect on the U.S. Supreme Court”
