Barbara Trish Awarded Prestigious Leverhulme Visiting Professorship

Barbara Trish, professor of political science and director of the Rosenfield Program in Public Affairs, International Relations, and Human Rights, will be supported by the prestigious Leverhulme Visiting Professorship grant. The grant will facilitate Professor Trish’s nine-month residency at the University of Nottingham’s School of Politics and International Relations. While there, she will work with the Research Centre for the Study of Parties and Democracy (REPRESENT), a collaboration between the University of Birmingham and the University of Nottingham. The research center “brings together an interdisciplinary network of scholars with an interest in collaborating on innovative research into key areas of challenge for political parties and the study of representative democracy.”

This honor comes as a recognition of Trish’s outstanding contributions to her field and her commitment to studying the intersection between political parties, electoral politics, and technology. With the support of the Leverhulme Visiting Professorship grant, she will explore and advance her research on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in political campaigns within the United States and the United Kingdom, which are scheduled to hold general elections in the fall of 2024.

“I’m thrilled about the possibility of studying campaign politics in the UK, on the ground and hopefully in real time,” says Trish. “Admittedly, the uncertainty of precisely when the UK general elections will be called adds a little drama to this plan. Regardless of timing, I look forward to talking to practitioners and to voters about their experiences, both in using artificial intelligence to craft and deliver messages and in receiving and making sense of those messages.”

During her residency, she will conduct a masterclass on interviewing political elites within the framework of American campaigns, lead public lectures and research seminars, and collaborate abroad with faculty, staff, and students in similar fields. Trish’s Leverhulme Visiting Professorship not only recognizes her accomplishments within her field but also serves as a testament to the importance of collaborative and interdisciplinary research in future political science research.

“Knowing that I’ll be supported by a network of colleagues at REPRESENT gives me confidence that I can maneuver this new setting, with lots of unknowns. Like much of the world, the campaign industry is trying to come to terms with the promise and potential peril of AI.”

Trish published her book, “Inside the Bubble,” in the fall of 2021 and has contributed commentary and analysis to various topics within contemporary politics, including “Big Data under Obama and Trump: The Data-Fueled U.S. Presidency,” which was published in Politics and Governance. Her courses at Grinnell focus on American politics, with an emphasis on empirical and quantitative methods of research and analysis.

“I’m excited about bringing back first-hand knowledge of a comparative case to my Grinnell teaching,” Trish notes. “I’m especially interested in making sense of how technology and practices are diffused over time and place, a lesson not just for campaign politics but for society in general.”

About the Leverhulme Visiting Professorship Grant

The Leverhulme Visiting Professorships aim to support distinguished senior professors from overseas to enrich the academic landscape in the UK. In particular, the grant is an opportunity for professors to advance their research while bringing “genuinely novel expertise and enhancing the skills and knowledge of academic staff and students in an underrepresented area in the UK.”