Alex Hughes

Political Behavior, Social Networks, Experimental Methods ; American & Comparative Politics 

Dissertation Title: Political Actors Use Social Networks to Coordinate Behavior 

Research Program: I research how the connections between voters influence political behavior, in particular political coordination. In my dissertation, I measure the complete, face-to-face social networks of more than 4,000 voters. Then, I run controlled experiments to examine how these networks shape political coordination behavior. I find compelling evidence that voters use a prestige-biased lens when deciding whether to take political action. In addition to my dissertation research, I am a part of a large, multi-year project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. This project aims to change health and other norm-based behavior using technology developed, in part, through my dissertation research.

Teaching Experience:I have extensive experience teaching applied and theoretical methods courses at the PhD and Masters level. I have been the course creator/instructor of record for three separate Graduate level courses: (1) Regression for Political Science PHD Students (UC San Diego); (2) Causal Inference for Data Scientice Masters Students (UC Berkeley); (3) Math and Probability for Political Science PHD Students (UC San Diego)

Current Appointment:  PhD Candidate at UC San Diego; Pre-Doctoral Fellow in Data Science Institute at UC Berkeley School of Information 

Committee:James Fowler (Chair); Thad Kousser; Scott Desposato; Seth Hill; Jim Andreoni (UCSD Economics)