The following former UNL Political Science PhD graduates who worked in conjunction with the Political Physiology Lab. Below, we briefly provide information about their accomplishments and what they have gone on to do.
Amanda Friesen Ph.D
Fields: Biology and Politics, Behavior Genetics, Political Psychology, Political Behavior, Politics and Religion, Family Socialization, Public Opinion, and Gender and Politics
Amanda Friesen, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis. She has published in Political Behavior, the Journal for Women, Politics & Policy, Social Science Quarterly and the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London--Biological Sciences. She also has been awarded grants from the National Science Foundation and University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Dr. Friesen's research interests include political psychology, religion and politics, family socialization, public opinion, gender and politics, behavior genetics, and biology and politics. Her dissertation focused on the intersection of religious and political beliefs within individuals and across generations (http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/poliscitheses/14/). More broadly, Dr. Friesen's research examines American political behavior – from conducting focus groups about the intersection of politics and religion across a wide range of congregations to examining the physiological correlates of political ideology and participation. Her research agenda focuses on three important long-term contributions: advancing understanding of the human condition, i.e., the reasons people believe and act the way they do; contributing to understanding the stability of beliefs across generations and, therefore, of the relative intractability of people’s positions on controversial issues; and integrating theories across the social and biological sciences in hopes of promoting usage of theories, methods and technologies from other disciplines to help answer other important questions.
For more information on Dr. Friesen's research and teaching, go to her personal website, or email her at amfriese@iupui.edu
Douglas R. Oxley Ph.D
Fields: Public policy & Political Psychology
Dr. Douglas R. Oxley has an eclectic set of research interests and skills resulting from his twenty years of experience in academic, corporate, and nonprofit settings. His research interests include individual behavior in the context of the public policy process, information technology policy, and the influence of neurological and other physical factors on public decision-making. Dr. Oxley was recently awarded a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to study the physical aspects of age discrimination in hiring. He received his M.A. in economics and his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Nebraska. At Nebraska, he was awarded the Presidential Fellowship during his final year of study. Dr. Oxley then took a postdoctoral position at Texas A&M in the Institute for Science, Technology, and Public Policy at the Bush School of Government and Public Service. He has taught courses on research methods, public policy, American government, public administration, and economics at Wyoming, Texas A&M and Nebraska. Prior to his return to the academy, Dr. Oxley worked for over ten years developing information systems for corporate and nonprofit organizations.
