Christy Aroopala (Ph.D., Rice University, 2009), is a Postdoctoral Associate at the Yale Center for the Study of American Politics and Lecturer with the Department of Political Science. Her research interests include political behavior, political psychology, social identity, and experimental methodology. Her dissertation, "Mobilizing Collective Identities: Frames and Rational Individuals," explores how and when group mobilization efforts are successful, and was funded by a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant. She takes a micro approach by combining rational choice and psychological theories to generate expectations concerning the role of instrumental factors (i.e., threshold rules and stakes of the decision) in moderating the success of frames in increasing group participation. One of her current research projects explores how competitive frames and group identities affect behavior when instrumental factors are taken into account. For more information, visit Dr. Aroopala's web site.

Michael Peress (Ph.D., Carnegie Mellon University, 2006), is a Visiting Fellow at the Yale Center for the Study of American Politics and an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Rochester. His research focuses on voting behavior, legislative institutions, electoral systems, methodology, and formal theory. Currently, he is studying the targeting of political advertising, ideal point estimation, economic voting, and cosponsorship of legislation. His work has been published or is forthcoming in Journal of Politics, Journal of the American Statistical Association, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Political Analysis, Public Choice, and Social Choice and Welfare. For more information, visit Professor Peress' web site.