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Samuel Jens

Hello and welcome,

I am currently a Research Associate at the Center for News, Technology & Innovation.

I am a PhD graduate from the Department of Political Science at Stony Brook University where I also remain an adjunct lecturer. My dissertation measured the risk aversion of elected officials in the U.S. Congress using speeches (text) from the Congressional Record. My committee was chaired by Professor Ryan Vander Wielen and included Professor Michael Peress and Professor Stanley Feldman.

The first chapter of my dissertation presented a methods-based approach for measuring traits of legislators using text/speech data. My second and third chapters examined how risk aversion influences the progressive ambition of House members and their legislative styles, respectively.

My Shiny app for playing versions of the iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma is available here. I continue to work on other Shiny apps and will update my website when they are ready for use.

Outside of work, I enjoy biking, camping, and GT3/4 racing.

Thank you for visiting my personal website! You may find my current CV at the top of the page. You may reach me via email at samuel [dot] a [dot] jens [@] gmail [dot] com.

Interests

  • American Politics
  • Legislative Behavior
  • Political Psychology
  • Research Methods

Education

Stony Brook University
2018 - 2023
PhD American Politics and Political Psychology
Stony Brook University
2017 - 2018
MA Political Science
College of William and Mary
2013 - 2017
BA Psychology (Honors) and Government

Research in Progress

Risk Aversion and Party Relation in the U.S. Congress 2023, working research
Ryan Vander Wielen and Samuel Jens
Their Economic Pain, Our Emotional Gain: Can Schadenfreude Motivate Responses to Redistributive Policies? 2023, revisions
H. Hannah Nam, Samuel Jens, and Yanna Krupnikov

Blog Posts

Ideas that Interest Me: Both Curricular and Extracurricular
Comparing States' CES Ideology and Senators' NOMINATE Values
Presidential Rankings and Skowronek's (1993) Regimes
Simulating Ideal Points for Shotts (2003) in R
Web Scraping Congressional Leaders' Press Releases with R
The Relationship between Qualifying Position and Final Position in the 2021 Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe