About Melanie J. Springer

Assistant Professor

Politics

University of California, Santa Cruz


Connect

Email: mjs@ucsc.edu

Website: http://politics.ucsc.edu/faculty/singleton.php?&singleton=true&cruz_id=mjs


Biographical sketch and research interests

Melanie Jean Springer received her Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University in 2006, and began her academic career at Washington University in Saint Louis. She specializes in American Politics. Her research and teaching interests include American political development, voting and elections, state politics and policy-making, and political institutions. Her book How the States Shaped the Nation: American Electoral Institutions and Voter Turnout, 1920-2000 was published in 2013 with the University of Chicago Press (Chicago Studies in American Politics). This work examines the effects of numerous state-level electoral institutions on 20th century voter turnout rates in the American states. Her research has also been published by Brookings Institution Press, and in Political Research Quarterly, State Politics and Policy Quarterly, Public Opinion Quarterly and Social Science Quarterly.