Placements

One of the key goals of the PhD program is to facilitate our students’ success in obtaining a job upon the completion of their degree. While many of our students pursue tenure-track jobs at universities, we also have a strong record of placing graduates in the public and private sectors as data analysts.

Recent graduates have obtained tenure-track positions at universities such as University of Missouri-St. Louis, North Dakota State University, University of Kentucky, University of Nebraska, University of Idaho, Auburn University, and Texas Tech University. Graduates have also taken prestigious post-doctoral fellowships through Duke University and through the American Political Science Association Congressional Fellows Program. Students have also found success in the private sector, working as data analysts for companies such as Luckie Advertising and Meta.

Based on a survey of recent graduates, 85% of graduates were employed full-time after graduating, 7% were in post-doctoral positions, and 7% were self-employed.

Please see our list of PhD students currently on the market.

Recent placements of our program graduates include:

Amanzhol Bekmagambetov (PhD 2024)
Assistant Professor, KIMEP University

Matthew Rains (PhD 2024)
Assistant Professor, Whitworth University

Alexandria Putman (PhD 2024)
Assistant Professor, Nebraska Wesleyan University

Grace Pittman (PhD 2024)
Assistant Professor, East Georgia State College

Austin Petrie (PhD 2024)
Lecturer, University of South Carolina

Jake Truscott (PhD 2023)
Assistant Professor, University of Florida

Morgan Barney (PhD 2023)
ECS Federal

Chun Young Park (PhD 2023)
Assistant Professor, Nazarbayev University

Ryan Liou (PhD 2023)
Lecturer, Wabash University

Shanshan Lian (PhD 2023)
Postdoctoral Fellow, Institute for Human Rights at the University of Alabama – Birmingham

Jake Truscott (PhD 2023)
Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for C-SPAN Scholarship and Engagement at Purdue University

Mariliz Kastberg-Leonard (PhD 2023)
Assistant Professor, Northwest Missouri State University

Yuan Wang (PhD 2022)
Assistant Professor, Ripon College

Neil Williams (PhD 2022)
Visiting Assistant Professor, University of Louisiana at Lafayette

Douglas Atkinson (PhD 2018)
Assistant Professor, Brigham Young University

George Williford (PhD 2021)
Data Scientist, Meta

Linan Jia (PhD 2022)
Assistant Professor, Beijing Foreign Studies University

Adam Rutkowski (PhD 2022)
Assistant Professor, Troy University

Aaron Hitefield (PhD 2022)
Assistant Professor, Whitworth University

Jakub Wondreys (PhD 2021)
Research Fellow, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany

Joshua Jackson (PhD 2020)
Criminal Justice Research Manager, Arnold Ventures

Naji Bsisu (PhD 2020)
Assistant Professor, Maryville College

Annie Watson (PhD 2020)
Assistant Professor, Middle Georgia State University

Lee Lukoff (PhD 2019)
US State Department

Ethan Boldt (PhD 2019)
Assistant Professor, Endicott College

Laine Shay (PhD 2018)
Assistant Professor, Texas A&M – Corpus Christi

Stephen Bagwell (PhD 2019)
Assistant Professor, University of Missouri-St. Louis

Austin Doctor (PhD 2019)
Assistant Professor, University of Nebraska at Omaha

Jason Byers (PhD 2019)
Assistant Professor, University of Connecticut

Filip Viskupic (PhD 2019)
Assistant Professor, South Dakota State University

Sarah Hunter (PhD 2019)
Lecturer, Clemson University

Gordon Ballingrud (PhD 2018)
Instructor, Texas Christian University

Placement of graduates of the PhD program is excellent. Placements have been primarily at major research universities including:

• Albany University – State University of New York
• American University
• Binghamton University – State University of New York (2)
• Cleveland State University (2)
• DePaul University
• Emory University
• Florida State University
• Georgia State University
• Indiana University – Bloomington (2)
• Indiana University/ Purdue University – Indianapolis
• Louisiana State University
• New Mexico State University
• New York University
• Ohio State University
• Pennsylvania State
• University Rutgers University (2)
• Seoul National University
• Syracuse University
• University of Arizona
• University of Colorado
• University of Florida
• City University of Hong Kong
• University of Kansas
• University of Minnesota
• University of Missouri
• University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill
• University of Oklahoma National
• University of Singapore
• University of Tennessee
• University of Texas – Dallas
• University of Washington