Murphy Seminar in Political Science: Valeria Umanets (Tulane)

The Murphy Institute Spring Seminar Series in Political Science

Each semester The Murphy Institute sponsors a series of seminars organized by the Tulane Department of Political Science that provides an opportunity for faculty, researchers, and practitioners to present their latest research and pressing issues related to topics in political economy. Research presented covers all aspects of contemporary politics science, including comparative politics, public policy, international relations, American politics, and normative theory. Papers are distributed beforehand to the participants who read the paper and prepare discussion questions for the presenter.

In the 2025–2026 academic year, Valeria Umanets is an SLA Faculty Fellow in Tulane University’s Department of Political Science and a Newcomb Faculty Affiliate. Beginning in 2026, she will join Tulane as an Assistant Professor of Political Science. Prior to Tulane, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research examines women and politics, non-democratic political institutions, historical political economy, and post-Communist states. She earned her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and an MPhil in Politics from the University of Oxford. Her work draws on archival data, econometric analysis, elite interviews, and survey experiments, and has been published in Democratization and by Routledge.