Ciera Hammond
Ciera Hammond is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at the University of Michigan, where she specializes in American politics, political communication, and political psychology. Her research examines how identities that are not explicitly political—such as the identity of being a sports fan—shape political attitudes, public opinion, and perceptions of partisan groups. She employs a diverse range of methods in her research, including surveys, survey experiments, and computational text analysis.
Her scholarship has appeared in Political Behavior and Politics & Gender, and she is the co-author of a book chapter in The Making of Presidential Candidates 2024. In addition to her publications, Ms. Hammond has presented her work at the American Political Science Association, the Midwest Political Science Association, the Western Political Science Association, and at university research symposia. In 2024, she contributed to a presentation on STEM graduate education at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
Multiple competitive fellowships and awards, including the Converse Miller Fellowship in American Political Behavior, the Rackham Dissertation Fellowship, and several travel and research grants, have supported Ms. Hammond’s research. At the University of Michigan, she has served as a graduate student research assistant on faculty projects examining gender and politics, voter turnout, science communication, and media coverage of elections, working with scholars such as Arthur Lupia, Nancy Burns, and Michael Traugott.
She is also an experienced teacher, having taught or assisted in courses on American government, persuasive politics, and media and public opinion at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. She received the John W. Kingdon Teaching Award for Outstanding Teaching in 2023.
Education
Before graduate school, Ms. Hammond earned her B.A. in political science from California State University, San Bernardino. During her undergraduate career, she was active in student leadership, serving as president of the University Honors Program and as a member of the California State Student Association Board of Directors.
