Raquel Centeno

Raquel Centeno is a Postdoctoral Scholar Teaching Fellow in Science, Society, and Policy at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), concurrently serving as a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Southern California (USC). Her work focuses on voter psychology, affective partisan polarization, and the intersection of racial/ethnic identity with political behavior. She employs quantitative methods, including surveys and experiments, with expertise in computational social science.

Education:

• B.A. in Political Science, California Lutheran University (2018)
• Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science, University of Southern California

Research Interests:

• Examines how voters' identities shape partisan attitudes and voting behavior
• Investigates electoral systems, emotions in politics, and methodological innovations in survey design
• Focuses on integrating computational tools into political analysis

Awards & Grants:

• Rapoport Family Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Grant
• APSA EPOVB Fellowship (2022-2023)

Teaching & Collaborations:

• Instructor of American Politics at Occidental College
• Research Associate at The Center for Election Science, analyzing voter psychology in electoral systems
• Contributor to the USC Schwarzenegger Institute’s California Issues Poll and CSU Long Beach’s Urban Politics Poll

Labs/Teams: Engaged in cross-disciplinary collaborations with practitioners to study voting system reforms and ballot initiative impacts.