Rostock, Former East Germany
Received Ph.D. from the Department of Politics in May, 2000
Dissertation: Communities of Trust: Social Capital and Public Action in Comparative Perspective
Dissertation Committee: Nancy Bermeo, Larry Bartels, Ezra Suleiman and Sheri Berman
Summer Program in Quantitative Methods for Social Scientists
Completed M.A. Program in International Studies with emphasis on International Political Economy. M.A. received in May 1993. Master's Committee: Jacek Kugler and Russell Dalton
Completed John S. Knight Fellowship for professional journalists. Program emphasized American and European history and politics, documentary production
Association of Journalists of the GDR, Rostock, GDR (1987)
Completed professional education and specialization in journalism with a focus on local and national politics
Award for the Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching by the Political Science Student Association, McGill
Invited to teach the Ph.D. Summer Course on Social Capital for the Oslo Summer School in Social Science Research. See http://www.sv.uio.no/oss/Museum/2004/
Was named Associate Director of the Citizenship, Involvement, Democracy: Survey, Project at the Center for Democracy and Civil Society at Georgetown University
Recipient, Best Paper on European Politics award, selected by the APSA Organized Section on European Politics and Society (with Bo Rothstein)
Wissenschaftszentrum für Sozialforschung Berlin. Was named Karl W. Deutsch Gastprofessorin
Was nominated three times for Best Paper awards at the APSA and ECPR conferences
Dissertation Grant, The Aspen Institute Nonprofit Sector Research Fund
Woodrow Wilson Society, Princeton University
Research Grants for field research from the Princeton Center of International Studies, Center of European Studies, Council of Regional Studies and the MacArthur Foundation
Summer Stipend for the Humanities and Social Sciences, Graduate School, Princeton University
Friedrich-Ebert Foundation, Bonn, Germany. Received stipend and half of the tuition for the participation in the graduate program at the Claremont Graduate University.
German Marshall Fund fellowship
John S. Knight Foundation, in a program for professional journalists, Stanford University
Director of the Inter-University Center for the Study of Democratic Citizenship
Committee Member for the Evaluation of Insight Development Grants, Social Science Research Council of Canada
Dean’s Representative for the Search Committee for the chair of the Dept of Sociology Faculty of Arts, McGill University
Member of the Board of Directors at the Canadian Political Science Association
Axis leader and Organizer of the Speaker Series of the Center for the Study of Democratic Citizenship
Co-Director of the EU Centre of Excellence of McGill University and Université de Montréal
Member of the Sustainability Committee at the Dept. of Political Science, McGill University
Member of an informal methods committee at the Department of Political Science to help build a PhD field in Methods
Representative of the Field Comparative Politics in the Department of Political Science, McGill University
Co-organizer of the Political Behavior section at the Canadian Political Science Association Meeting, Edmonton
Member of the Joint Arts and Law search committee for the Pearson Chair, Faculty of Arts, McGill University
Member of the University-Tenure-Committee (UTC) in Science, McGill University
Joint Honours Advisor at the Department of Political Science, McGill University
Member of the Sustainability Committee at the Department of Political Science, McGill University
Member of the Space Committee of the Faculty of Arts, McGill University
Member of Thesis Committee Faculty of Arts, McGill University
Member of Search Committee for one Assistant Professor Position in International Political Economy, Department of Political Science, McGill University
Representative of the Field Comparative Politics in the Department of Political Science, McGill University. Tasks include administration of PhD exams in the subfield, coordination of courses offered, student advising on subfield issues.
Head of the Comparative Politics (Industrialized) section at the Canadian Political Science Association Meeting in 2005. CPSA
Member in the Committee to Enhance Arts Education (Director: Prof. Myron Frankman, attended regular meetings, helped organize Forum on Learning).
Member of Search Committee for three Assistant Professor Positions in Comparative Politics/IPE, Dpt. of Political Science, McGill
Member of the Dissertation Award Committee at the American Political Science Association Section European Politics and Society, APSA, USA.
Outreach Coordinator, Dpt. of Political Science, McGill
Member of the Advisory Board on the Citizenship, Involvement and Democracy Survey Project, Georgetown University, USA
Outreach Coordinator, Dpt. of Political Science, McGill. Designed poster to announce Departmental MA and PhD stipends, designed an IR-subfield information sheet and called faculty members in Canada, US and Europe about our faculty positions.
McGill Representative of the European Political Consortium
Graduate Admission Committee, Dpt. of Political Science, McGill
Method Committee, Department of Political Science, McGill
Member of Search Committee for two Assistant Professor Positions in Comparative Politics, McGill
Graduate Admission Committee, Department of Political Science, McGill
Member of Search Committee for Assistant Professor Position in Comparative Politics, Dpt. of Political Science, University of Pittsburgh
Graduate Student Grant Committee, Dpt. of Political Science, University of Pittsburgh
Over the last years, I have trained and worked with over 45 undergraduate and graduate students as research assistants. Several of them worked as independent researchers and led parts of a research team. All of them learned various research and methodological skills and found out about the details of an entire research process. Many students moved on to professorships, postdocs, graduate school, professional training or exciting jobs. Several students are co-authors of academic articles, data sets, or questionnaires.
Allison Harell (McGill): “The Micro-Story of Multiculturalism-Diverse Social Networks and the Socialization of Tolerance,” defense March 2008. Dissertation received the Joseph and Sandra Rotman Prize in Canadian Politics. Hired as postdoc at the Canadian Opinion Research Archive at Queens/McGill University.
Lucio Renno (Pittsburgh):“Information and Voting: Micro-foundations of Accountability in Complex Electoral Environments.” Defended July 2004, now Professor of Political Science at the University of Brasilia.
Stephanie McLean
(Pittsburgh):“The Impact of Procedural Justice on Electoral Legitimacy.” Defended August 2006.Tim Reeskens (KU Leuven):“Ethnic Diversity, Trust and Immigration Policy.” Defended December 2009. Now a Research Fellow at the University of Amsterdam and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Leuven.
Ellen Claes (KU Leuven): “The Role of Civic Education for Political Engagement of Adolescents.” Defended May 2010.
Valerie-Anne Maheo
(McGill)Denver McNeney
(McGill)Chris Chhim
(McGill)Bethany Or
(Research Paper 2009): “Parlez vous anglais? Language, immigration and work in Quebec.”
Angela Kostenko
(Research Paper 2009): “Examining the Effects of the Internet on Youth Electoral Participation in the United States.”
Ayanna Roberts
(Thesis, McGill, 2006)): “Protesting the Polls: How postmaterialism affects political participation in young people.”
Natalia Lis
(Research Paper, McGill, 2005): “Sources of political participation: the effects of religion in Eastern Europe.”
Sarah Freund
(Thesis, McGill, 2005): “Social Capital and State Repression in Nigeria.”
Sarah Houde
(Research Paper, McGill, 2005): “When social marginalization means political isolation: the impact of extreme inequality on the quality of democracy in Botswana.”
Shadia El Dardiry
(Thesis, McGill, 2010): “Investigating Perspectives on Integration by Second Generation North African French and Native French Citizens.”
Joslyn Trowbridge
(Thesis, McGill, 2004): “Looking in the Wrong Place: Revisiting the Gender Gap in Canadian Politics” (Women’s Studies/Political Science).
Marc Trussler
(Thesis, McGill, 2010): “Online Political Media and Opinion Extremity.”
Anna Laurence
(Research Paper, McGill, 2011): "Net Gains?: An Inquiry into the Scope of Internet Affects on Political Participation"
Jean-Simon Farrah
(Thesis, McGill, 2010): "Perceptions of Old Age in Comparative Perspective: Does the Welfare State Matter?"
Volker Derek
(Thesis, McGill, 2011): "Constituency representation in parliamentary systems: An examination of evidence in the legislative assembly of Alberta"
American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, American Journal of Sociology, British Journal of Political Science, Canadian Journal of Political Science, Comparative Sociology, European Journal of Political Research, Governance, Journal of Politics, Journal of Canadian Studies, Journal of Consumer Culture, Political Behavior, Political Psychology, Political Research Quarterly, Political Studies, Scandinavian Political Studies, Social Forces, Social Science Research, Sociological Perspectives, Sociology of Sport Journal, Swiss Political Science Review
Worked as a radio journalist. Reported mainly on East / West unification problems as well as on the democratization process in the new Länder
Intern. Worked as a newspaper journalist in the old Länder
Intern. Observed and participated in journalistic work at a local TV station
Full-time position. Worked as a radio-journalist, editor and announcer. Investigated the role of the state secret police, and reported about the first free elections in East Germany. Developed own radio show
French language classes
Class on hierarchical models and HLM
Class on Multi-level Modeling, Class on Non-response Issues
Fluent in German (native) and English; good knowledge of Swedish; Danish (reading); Norwegian (reading); French (intermediate); some knowledge of Russian (10 years in school) and Bulgarian.