In recognition of their outstanding academic and personal achievements, APSA is pleased to announce the APSA Minority Fellows for the 2012–13 academic year. The APSA Minority Fellows Program (MFP) was established in 1969 as an effort to increase the number of minority scholars in the discipline and has designated more than 400 fellows and contributed to the successful completion of doctoral political science programs for more than 100 individuals. APSA has refocused and increased its efforts to assist minority students in completing their doctorates by concentrating not only on the recruitment of minorities, but also on the retention of these groups within the profession. The MFP designates up to 12 stipend minority fellows each year. Fellows with stipends receive a $4,000 fellowship that is disbursed in two $2,000 payments—one at the end of their first graduate year and one at the end of their second—provided that they remain in good academic standing. Awards are based on students' undergraduate course work, GPA, extracurricular activities, GRE scores, and recommendations from faculty. Members of the selection committee for this year's fellows included Irasema Coronado, University of Texas, El Paso, Committee on the Status of Latinos and Latinas in the Profession; Eric L. McDaniel, University of Texas, Austin, Committee on the Status of Blacks in the Profession; and Wendy K. Tam Cho, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Committee on Asian Pacific Americans in Political Science. Learn more about the program by visiting http://www.apsanet.org/content_3284.cfm. This year's APSA Minority Fellows are described here.

Nidia Bautista

Nidia Bautista is a senior at Grinnell College with a double major in Political Science and Gender, Women's and Sexuality Studies. She is a Posse Scholar and her academic interests range from the politics of immigration and citizenship to education. As a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow, Nidia has conducted a research project for the last two years of her undergraduate career. Her research project is titled “Silenced Dreams: Unveiling the Higher- Education Resources Made Available to Undocumented Students within the Los Angeles Unified School District.” Her project aims to analyze the policies of the Los Angeles Unified School District with respect to undocumented students and the higher education resources made available to them. Through her project she intends to gain a comprehensive understanding of LAUSD officials and teacher's relationship with undocumented students and addressing their needs for higher education. Second, she hopes that by attaining a comprehensive understanding of the position both LAUSD officials and teachers are in, she can come up with practical options for addressing the needs for higher education of undocumented students. The overall goal of her project is to help the community she comes from and by focusing on undocumented students she will not only be able to suggest practical options to help this particular group but also address key issues in education that are not limited to undocumented students. Nidia is grateful for all of the mentorship she has received at Grinnell by faculty members and especially to her Mellon Mays mentor Professor Rebecca Hamlin form the Political Science department who has helped Nidia improve as an academic and has reinvigorated Nidia's passion for the field of Political Science.

Carolina Ferrerosa

Carolina Ferrerosa graduated from the University of Virginia with a BA in Government in 2009. Carolina was a 2008 Ralph Bunche Summer Institute Scholar, presented her research at the 2008 APSA annual conference, and participated in the Virginia Department of Politics' Distinguished Majors Program. For her honor's thesis, she conducted a survey of Latino immigrants in Northern Virginia to gauge political participation and response to county-level immigration policy. Professionally, Carolina was a Research Assistant for Dr. Vesla Weaver in the Department of Politics as an undergraduate, a Research Assistant/Programmer for Mathematica Policy Research shortly after graduation, and currently works for Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation (MDRC), as a Research Assistant in the Health and Barriers to Employment policy area in New York, NY. Her research interests include American politics, political participation, elections, immigration, social policy, and inequality.

Dirk Horn

Dirk Horn is a senior at California State University, Bakersfield (CSUB) majoring in Political Science with a minor in Economics and Philosophy. He is the principal teaching assistant for the department of political science at CSUB, specializing in the research methods courses. Dirk is a McNair Scholar, as well as a 2011 Ralph Bunche Summer Institute Scholar. He presented his research at the APSA's Annual Meeting in Seattle, Washington. Additionally, Dirk will participate in a panel discussion entitled “Democracies, Dictatorships, and Economies” at the International Studies Association's Annual Meeting in San Diego, California, in April 2012. Moreover, after three years of research into the topic of political regimes and their effects on economic growth he submitted a manuscript titled “Political Freedom, Corruption, Public Institutions, and Economic Growth: A Global Analysis Since the Fall of the Soviet Union” for review in the Statistics, Politics, and Policy Journal operated by Berkeley Electronic Press. Dirk will pursue a PhD in political science; his focus will be international relations, quantitative methodology, and international political economy.

Marlette Jackson

Marlette Jackson is a senior at Texas A&M University, majoring in Political Science with a minor in Africana Studies. She has worked as a research assistant for the Project for Equity, Representation, and Governance (PERG) in the Political Science Department. She has also been selected to be a part of the Texas A&M 2011-2012 cohort of Undergraduate Research Scholars. In April, Marlette will present a paper on bureaucratic capacity and health care administration in Africa at the Midwest Political Science Association's Conference. Next year, Marlette will pursue a graduate degree in political science, studying public administration/ policy and comparative politics with emphasis on race and ethnicity in Africa and Latin America.

Brianna Nicole Mack

Brianna Nicole Mack attends Emory University and is passionate about politics, racial issues, and psychology. She was the 2007 recipient of the Questbridge National College Match Scholarship to Emory University (a full four year scholarship). While at Emory, Brianna deepened her love for politics and racial issues. She also cofounded the Emory Quest Scholars, an honor society for Emory students who either received the Questbridge Scholarship or were finalists for it. This group promotes the ideals of Questbridge through mentoring, volunteering, and academic success. She is currently a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow, a member of the President's Commission on Race and Ethnicity, a section editor of The Black Star magazine and student advisor to the Emory Quest Scholars. Under the mentorship of Dr. Andra Gillespie, Brianna has written a number of research papers, presented at conferences, and participated in the 2011 Ralph Bunche Summer Institute. Her research interests include racial and ethnic politics, political psychology, and methodology. Specifically, she is interested in how concepts such as linked fate and group consciousness interact with socialization factors to influence minority political opinion and behavior.

Vladimir E. Medenica

Vladimir E. Medenica is a senior studying political science and psychology at the University of Southern California (USC). As a McNair Scholar, Vladimir conducted research under the mentorship of Dr. Jane Junn on how American youth engage with politics using social networking sites. He most recently worked with Dr. Robert Shapiro as a Leadership Alliance Mellon Fellow at Columbia University on a study of immigrant political behavior in New York City. Vladimir has been featured in the USC Journal of Law and Society and has also served as a teaching assistant for the USC Information Technology Program. In graduate school, he hopes to specialize in political behavior, opinion, and psychology in graduate school.

Antonio Cesar Mendez

Antonio Cesar Mendez is a recent graduate of the University of Southern California (USC), where he completed his Master's in human behavior, with an emphasis on political behavior. Topically, Antonio is interested in evaluating the marginalizing effects of misappropriated and mishandled political power. In accordance with the centrality of race and ethnicity to American politics, the majority of Antonio's analytic attention is focused upon racial and ethnic groups, particularly their internally marginalized subgroup of the poor. More broadly, Antonio is interested in placing these perpetual processes of marginalization into the diachronic evolution of America's political and cultural development, with the hope of ultimately contributing to the amelioration of the conditions of the least advantaged. Antonio holds dual degrees from the California State University (CSU) system. At CSU Northridge, Antonio was recognized as the college's Outstanding Graduating Senior for his academic success, overcoming of adversity, and philanthropic leadership. Stemming from this award, Antonio was invited to speak at CSUN's 2009 Freshman Convocation and was featured in a Los Angeles Times article by columnist Steve Lopez. Prior to pursuing his Master's degree at USC, Antonio served as program director for the nonprofit organization Fostering Imagination. At USC, Antonio served as a research assistant within Professor Jesse Graham's Values, Ideology and Morality Lab; and worked on various research projects with faculty in the political science department. Antonio's most recent work is entitled “Re-Conceptualizing the Modern Racial Order: The Racial Alliances and the Political Construction of Latinidad.” Stages of this work have served as both his Master's thesis, as well as the substance of his presentation at the October 2010 convening of the Politics of Race, Immigration and Ethnicity Consortium

Vanessa Quince

Vanessa Quince is a senior at Binghamton University majoring in Political Science and Latin American Caribbean Area Studies. She attended the 2011 Ralph Bunche Summer Institute and presented her research paper titled, “All Work and No Pay: The Effect of Tourism on Workers' Rights”, at the APSA's 2011 Annual Meeting. Vanessa is interested in researching the effects of tourism on workers' rights in local communities of Latin America and the Caribbean through the formal sector and the informal sector. Vanessa's motivation for pursuing a post-doctoral degree in political science is to help shed light on how development affects local communities. The research she hopes to produce will contribute to the debate on development and how the profits made from development can be distributed fairly among different parts of the population. Vanessa is grateful to the Ronald E. McNair program and her advisor Dr. David Cingranelli for introducing her to the marvels of research and strategies for turning a topic of interest into a career.

Brennan L. Robinson

Brennan L. Robinson is a student at the University of Delaware, where he has displayed a dedication to community service. As First-Vice President of the University of Delaware Black Student Union, Brennan has initiated multiple programs and initiatives to help underrepresented high school and undergraduate students achieve their educational goals. In addition, Brennan has demonstrated a passion for academic excellence. He is both a Ralph Bunche Summer Institute and McNair scholar. As a result of his academic and community service pursuits, he has received multiple awards. Brennan is set to graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in political science with a minor in Black American Studies in May 2012. In the future, Brennan hopes to earn a PhD in political science and start a research program designed to help underrepresented high school and undergraduate students get into, and remain in college.

Sherí Sullivan

Sherí Sullivan graduated from Vanderbilt University in May 2011 with a BA in political science and Spanish. As a 2010 Ralph Bunche Summer Institute Scholar, she was selected to present her research at the 2010 APSA conference in Washington, DC. Her research addressed the effects of media cues during the 2008 presidential election, drawing on scholarly evidence of explicit and implicit racial messages and their implications as media cues designed to influence political behavior of Americans. As a graduate student, she plans to examine the political behavior of African American and Latino youth and the influence of media and technology on influencing voting outcomes. Sheri is ever grateful and excited about the opportunity to ursue a PhD in political science and looks forward to her professional career.

David Torres

David Torres graduated from the University of Houston - Clear Lake in December with a Bachelor of Science in Political Science. He spent much of his time at the university working with two student groups, one of which he founded. The goal of these groups was to encourage students to vote and inform them about political ideologies on all sides of the spectrum. David was also a member of two national honors societies, Pi Sigma Alpha and the National Society of Leadership and Success. He is highly interested in central banking and monetary policy and plans to study the relationship between military spending and political economy in his post-graduate studies. He has worked closely with Dr. Hoston, the Director of the Political Science Program at the University of Houston - Clear Lake. David wishes to pursue a Ph.D. in Political Science. Eventually, David hopes to become a university professor and make all aspects of the political process more accessible, all the while setting an example for the next generation of intellectuals.

Diane Wong

Diane Wong is a senior at SUNY Binghamton, majoring in Political Science and Asian and Asian American Studies with a concentration in the Chinese language. As a 2011 Leadership Alliance Mellon Fellow at Columbia University, she conducted research under the mentorship of Dr. Robert Y. Shapiro, and produced a paper entitled, “What Explains Asian American Political Participation: The Effects of Co-ethnic Candidates on Voter Turnout in New York City.” As co-investigator of the 2011 City Neighborhoods Study, Diane has traveled to New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Jose, and Chicago to administer a mixed-mode survey that focuses on the relationship between context and intergroup relations, and the process by which immigrant communities are incorporated into the polity. Her main research interests include: race and ethnic politics, Asian American politics, immigrant politics, diaspora identity politics, transnationalism, political behavior, and public opinion. Outside of academia, Diane has worked as a research assistant at the Asian American Justice Center in Washington, DC, and currently serves as the National Advocacy Chair on the nonprofit East Coast Asian American Student Union. She exemplifies her dedication to research and community work explaining, “I don't sleep very much, but I dream plenty.”