Kelsey Shoub

Kelsey Shoub is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, School of Public Policy. Her research focuses on how descriptive identities of officials and civilians intersect with policy contexts to influence outcomes, particularly in policing and race dynamics. She employs statistical methods, machine learning, and experimental approaches. Shoub co-authored Suspect Citizens: What 20 Million Stops Tell Us About Policing and Race, co-winning the 2018 C. Herman Pritchett Book Award. Her work appears in journals like Science Advances and Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, alongside general-audience platforms like The Monkey Cage (Washington Post).

Education: Ph.D. and M.A. in Political Science from the University of North Carolina; dual B.A. in Political Science and Philosophy from Ohio State University. Prior positions include Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of South Carolina and post-doctoral research at the Center for Effective Lawmaking (affiliate status retained).

Research emphasizes racial, gender, and language dimensions of policy impacts. Key areas include policing disparities, elite communication, and historical institutional legacies. Recent work examines traffic stop outcomes for marginalized groups, partisan positioning in congressional speech, and trust in police agencies.

Awards:

• C. Herman Pritchett Book Award (2018)

Advising/Grants: No formal advisee list provided. Active in interdisciplinary research teams at UMass and the Center for Effective Lawmaking.

Labs/Teams: Affiliated with the Center for Effective Lawmaking, focusing on legislative process and policy impact analysis.