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The votes are in—now what? Join political science faculty Brandon Boylan, Amy Lauren Lovecraft, Carol Gray, and Russell Luke for a timely panel analysis and community debriefing on the recent midterm election results. Our panelists will examine voter turnout, major policy shifts, and key takeaways, followed by an open Q&A session with the audience. Bring your questions and join the conversation! Making Sense of the Midterms panel discussion
Date: Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2026
Time: 6-7:30 p.m.
Location: Schaible Auditorium
Zoom Option: https://alaska.zoom.us/j/87198186661
About the Panelists
Brandon Boylan, PhD
Professor of Political Science; Director of the UAF Arctic and Northern Studies Program
Dr. Brandon M. Boylan is Professor of Political Science at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF). His primary research fields include international security, political violence, terrorism, ethnic conflict, and separatist movements. His research has been published in Journal of Common Market Studies, International Studies Perspectives, International Public Management Journal, Conflict Management and Peace Science, Nations and Nationalism, and Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, among others. His collaborative projects have been funded by the National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Commerce, and Norwegian Centre for International Cooperation in Education. At UAF, he is the Director of Arctic and Northern Studies. He teaches a range of undergraduate and graduate courses in international relations, comparative politics, and research methods. He is faculty advisor for Model United Nations and Model Arctic Council. He has participated in international security workshops sponsored by American University, Johns Hopkins University, and Columbia University. He holds a Ph.D. in International Affairs from the University of Pittsburgh.
Carol Gray, JD, PhD, LLM
Assistant Professor of Public Law, Department of Political Science; Coordinator of the UAF Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program
A former public defender, Dr. Carol Gray is an Assistant Professor of Public Law at UAF, teaching courses in political science and law. She is available to advise any UAF students interested in applying to law school. Gray obtained her JD from Northeastern University School of Law and her Masters in Advocacy (LLM) from Georgetown University Law Center. She also holds a PhD and Masters of Political Science, and certificates in Human Rights; Feminist Studies; and Race, Ethnicity and Politics, from the University of Connecticut. Gray was a Fulbright Scholar in Montreal; a Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholar in Egypt; a Prettyman Fellow at Georgetown University Law Center, and a National Association for Public Interest Law Fellow at the Georgia Resource Center which represents those on Georgia’s Death Row. Gray was also a UMass W.E.B. Du Bois Community College Fellow, a Wood/Raith Gender Identity Fellow, and holder of the Mary Miles Bibb post-doctoral teaching fellowship at Framingham State University. Her research is interdisciplinary exploring law, politics and human rights as they intersect with issues of race, class, and gender. She has published in the CLR James Journal; the Worcester Review; and the American Philosophical Association’s Newsletter on Feminism and Philosophy and its Black Issues in Philosophy series blog. She published a book chapter on the lack of due process at Guantanamo and has a forthcoming co-authored book chapter on the role of the Arab-Israeli conflict in Israeli foreign policy, an edited volume to be published by Routledge.
Amy Lauren Lovecraft, PhD
Professor of Political Science
Dr. Amy Lauren Lovecraft is a Professor of Political Science and has served as University of Alaska faculty since 2001. She received her B.A. in 1994 from Trinity University and began graduate studies in Vienna, Austria pursuing her undergraduate focus on international economics and European integration. Unable to resist North America for long she returned to earn her Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin concentrating on American political development, public policy, and political theory. Her dissertation analyzed transboundary water policy between the United States and Canada in the Great Lakes. At UAF her courses include the Law and Society suite – Politics and Judicial Process, Con Law I and Con Law II – and, among others, Public Policy, Political Economy, and Political Behavior. Working to foster interdisciplinary engagement among students and faculty she is active in the Arctic and Northern Studies and the Resilience and Adaptation programs at UAF. In her research, Dr. Lovecraft explores power dynamics in social-ecological systems. Her scholarship has been published as book chapters and in journals such asArctic, Marine Policy, The American Review of Canadian Studies, Polar Geography, Policy Studies Journal, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Recently she is co-editor of the transdisciplinary volume North by 2020: Perspectives on Alaska’s Changing Social-Ecological Systems (Autumn 2011) that developed from collaboration during the International Polar Year. She has been a Dickey Fellow in Arctic Studies at Dartmouth College and a Fulbright Research Scholar in Norway at the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research (CICERO). She has served two terms as a member of the U.S. National Academies Polar Research Board and is he Associate Director of the North by 2020 Forum. Currently, as the Principle Investigator on a three-year National Science Foundation grant, she leads a team working with resident experts in the Northwest Arctic and North Slope Boroughs on scenarios development asking "what is required for healthy sustainable communities in Arctic Alaska by 2040?"
Russell Luke, PhD
Assistant Professor of Political Science- American Politics
Russell Luke is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at UAF, teaching courses across American Politics. He holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in Political Science from Georgia State University, and a B.A. in Political Science from SUNY Buffalo State College. His research examines American political behavior in the modern era, the origins and impacts of political polarization, the electoral effects of climate change, political messaging and framing, and the influence of institutional constraints on voting behavior. His primary research agenda centers on the intersection of political attitudes and election outcomes, employing quantitative methodologies, spatial and formal modeling, and causal inference. His research has been published in peer-reviewed publications such as Democratization, Climatic Change, Questions in Politics, among others.
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Event venue
UAF Schaible Auditorium, 323 Tanana Loop,College,AK,United States, Fairbanks
Tickets
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