Raquel Centeno

Public Opinion, Political Behavior, Identity Politics

Hi, my name is Raquel Centeno. I’m a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Southern California studying how voters think and feel about parties and partisanship. I also explore how these feelings are impacted by voters’ various group identities, particularly race and racial identity. My subfields are American politics and Methods, and I am especially interested in subjects related to public opinion and political psychology.

Download and view my CV here!

Headshot of Raquel Centeno

My dissertation focuses on the concept of affective partisan polarization and the role that racial and ethnic identity plays in how voters feel about their partisanship and other partisans. I have also worked on research that involves voting behavior, electoral systems, and emotions & politics. I tend to work with quantitative methods with a particular focus on surveys, experiments, and integrating computational social science methods into survey work. I am fortunate to be the recipient of multiple grants for my research in this area and am a 2022-2023 APSA Elections, Public Opinion, and Voting Behavior (EPOVB) Fellow.

Prior to USC, I completed my BA in Political Science at California Lutheran University in 2018. I have also been an instructor in American politics at Occidental College. Outside of academic work I have also served as a Research Associate at The Center for Election Science where I was able to apply my survey and experimental research skills to understanding how voters think about electoral systems and ballot initiatives.

When I’m not doing academic work, I enjoy doing fitness classes a few times a week, playing video games on my Nintendo Switch, going to farmer’s markets, and spending time with my cat Xochi.

Photo of Xochi, Raquel Centeno's cat
Xochi (pronounced so-chee), the cat I spend my time with.

If you are someone interested in political science as a field, wondering what graduate school is like, or even thinking about USC as a grad school option, feel free to reach out to me via email! I’m always happy to chat.

Content: CC BY-SA Raquel Centeno 2023 (get source code). Creative Commons License

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