UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — This summer, faculty and graduate students from across the College of the Liberal Arts will receive more than $50,000 in support from the McCourtney Institute for Democracy’s Research in Democracy Support Grant program to advance their work on topics related to democracy.

The grants support projects in the humanities and social sciences that broadly address one of the institute’s four research clusters:

1. Democratic dissent, protest and deliberation
2. Political and social polarization; discord and division
3. Political participation, civic engagement and democratic responsiveness
4. Guardrails of democracy

The summer 2022 grant recipients are:

• Daryl Cameron, associate professor of psychology, for “Empathic Choices, Democratic Norms, and Moral Responsibility”
• Gary Fong, political science doctoral student, for “Do Voters Perceive Politicians as Authoritarians?”
• Elizabeth Kadetsky, associate professor of English, for: “The Tanesar Mothers: Ethics, Global Voices, and Museums”
• Sara Liao, assistant professor of Asian studies and women's, gender, and sexuality studies for: “Contentious Politics: Digital Media and Transnational Feminist Activism”
• Arif Memofic, political science doctoral student, for “Understanding How Individual Level Attributes of Those Committing Political Violence Affect Americans Attitudes Regarding Punishment”
• Ann Marie Mingo, assistant professor of African American studies for “Foundations for Political Freedom: Black Women’s Political Organizing in the Southern United States;”
• Fernando Ismael Quiñones Valdivia, communications arts and sciences doctoral student, for “Undocumented Time: Rhetorics of a Colonial Moment”
• Dara Walker, assistant professor of African American studies for: “High School Rebels: Black Power, Education, and Youth Politics in the Motor City, 1966-1973”
• Wayne Wapeemukwa, philosophy doctoral student, for “Partisans of the Soil: Land, Race, Capital, and Indigenous Dispossession, 1870 - 1920”
• Christopher Zorn, professor of political science for “Public Defenders in Pennsylvania: Resources, Results, and Ramifications”

“The McCourtney Institute for Democracy is grateful to our donors for making it possible to support important work by faculty and graduate students to better understand democracy and how we can strengthen it,” said Michael Berkman, McCourtney Institute director and professor of political science. “We look forward to seeing the results of these research projects and the continued success of the researchers working on them.”

For more information about the research in democracy support grants, visit the McCourtney Institute for Democracy website.