Undergraduate Honors Students
Emelyn Avina
Luke Babich
Luke Babich is a junior from St. Louis, Missouri. His research explores the period of Sino-US rapprochement around 1972, using methods from the text as data literature to investigate how Communist Party elites used the autocratic press under their command to reshape public opinion. At Stanford, Luke has been involved with Stanford in Government (SIG), and currently serves concurrently as Vice President of Development and Interim Co-President for the Forum for American/Chinese Exchange at Stanford (FACES). In spare moments, Luke catches up on news, reads Arendt and Weber, and runs the Dish.
William Bannick
William Bannick is a junior who grew up in Santa Cruz and San Jose, California. Will is deeply interested in processes of democratization and democratic consolidation, with regional foci on the Middle East and Africa. Recently, in preparation for his honors thesis, Will has committed himself to studying the implications of the political institutions in place during founding elections, and how they may effect the robustness of a given democracy. Yet, his interests in Political Science extend beyond the study of democracy. He believes that to understand the contemporary political climate in a given state, one must understand its history, and to understand democratic governance, one must also understand authoritarian governance. Along these lines, he has worked as research assistant with Professor Lisa Blaydes on a project titled “Inside Iraqi Authoritarianism”. As a potential computer science minor, Will is excited by the nexus of data science and political science, and enjoys using statistical coding softwares to explore his research questions. Outside of class, Will is dedicated to serving his community. He works extensively with children and young adults with special needs, and is part of mentorship group that guides middle schoolers in East Palo Alto.
Christopher Barry
Alexandra Botez
Ben Chao
Ken-Ben Chao (Ben) is a sophomore from Honolulu, Hawaii. In the field of political science, Ben is deeply interested in political and economic development, international security, the role and development of international and regional organizations, and the changing international system. He is also involved with the Society for International Affairs at Stanford, is a member of the Model United Nations Travel Team, and recently served as a Vice-Chair for the high school Model United Nations conference.
Matthew Cohen
Matthew is a freshman from Orange County, California. Within the field of political science, he is interested in American political institutions. Outside of class, he is a political columnist for The Stanford Daily and part of the Society for International Affairs. In his spare time, he enjoys playing piano and running.
Nicole Dayhoff
Nicole is a senior from Atlanta, GA. She is in the Political Science Research Honors Track and is interested in American legal institutions as well as environmental policy. She is writing her senior thesis on racial sentencing disparities in state criminal courts. Nicole has worked as a research assistant for Professor Clayton Nall with GIS to digitize the development of the US highway and interstate system. In her free time, she enjoys running, being outside, and teaching swim lessons. She is also majoring in Energy Resources Engineering.
Kayla Economou
David Kay
David is a junior interested in animal rights. His research will examine political strategies for reducing the massive amount of suffering caused by animal agriculture, which is unquestionably the greatest source of pain and grief in the world. On campus he is the founder and president of Stanford PAW (People for Animal Welfare) and plays trombone in the Stanford Wind Ensemble.
Justin Lin
Justin is a senior from Los Angeles, CA. He is in the Research Honors track for political science and is interested in Political Theory and the institutional design of the American political system. He has worked as a research assistant for Professor Clayton Nall with Eclipse to chart geographical locations of cities throughout the United States. He enjoys solving Rubik's cubes and playing tennis in his free time.
Lauren Newby
Lauren is a sophomore majoring in Political Science. She is interested in international relations and Middle Eastern politics, particularly the region’s methods of government and evolving relationship with the rest of the international community. Past research includes the Eisenhower and Kennedy Administrations’ approaches to Gamal Abd al-Nasser from 19954-1956 with Professor James Gelvin at UCLA and the study of the factors enabling the 1978 Camp David Accords with Professor Douglas Becker at USC.
Habib Olapade
Habib is a junior from Houston, Texas. Within the field of political science, Habib is interested in applying quantitative methods to public law. In particular he focuses on American constitutional law, theory, and history, jurisprudence, election law/legislation, and the intersection of law and literature. In the past, Habib has performed legal research on the constitutional limits of criminal sanctions and ex post facto litigation in California as well as state compliance with federal anti-discrimination statutes in the American South. Habib is active in Texas Republican Party politics, served as a legislative assistant to Senator Ted Cruz, and hopes to attend law school in the near future. In his free time he enjoys reading literature on legal philosophy and American constitutional history.
Brett Parker
Brett is a sophomore interested in studying state judiciaries. His past research has tried to evaluate the effects of judicial selection method on criminal sentencing, and he is looking forward to further studying the behavior of state court judges. In the past, Brett has worked as a field organizer for the Maine Democratic Party, and during the summer of 2015, he will be a Fellow at the National Labor Relations Board. On campus, Brett is the incoming Managing Editor of the Stanford Political Journal, the Membership Director for the Stanford Democrats, and a member of the editorial board for Stanford’s undergraduate philosophy journal.
Benjamin Pham
Suhki Samra
James Stephens
James is a transfer student planning to graduate in 2017. He was born in Hawaii, raised in Japan, and has lived in New York and California. He plans to pursue a concentration in American Political Institutions and is interested in various research opportunities, studying abroad, studying in Washington D.C., and participating in interdisciplinary coursework in mathematics and philosophy.
Rachael Stryer
Andrew Vogeley
Andrew is a sophomore from Houston, Texas, whose interests include examining the impact of immigrants on the American political system and how race affects political attitudes. On campus, he is involved with the Stanford Daily, for which he serves as the managing editor of the news section.
