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Meet Our Newest Professors Sooyeon Kang and Justin Pottle

The Department of Political Science is proud to welcome Sooyeon Kang, left, and Justin Pottle to the faculty in fall 2023.

Professor Kang's research and teaching interests are in the areas of international relations, political violence, conflict processes, and mass mobilization, with a focus on East Asia. Her current research looks at the role of external actors and transnational dimensions of mass movements, comparing the politics of leader-led and leaderless mass movements. Her work has been published in the Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Peace Research, The Duck of Minerva, The Washington Post - Monkey Cage, Political Violence at a Glance, and at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

Professor Pottle’s research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of political theory, social epistemology, and American politics. His research explores the epistemic dimensions of democratic values and institutions – that is, how principles like equality and liberty and institutions like elections and news media shape what ordinary people know about politics. He is currently writing a book on how social, racial, and economic inequalities undermine civic knowledge and exacerbate problems of misinformation. His work has been published or is forthcoming in journals like the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, and Political Science Quarterly.