Omar Wasow

Curriculum Vitae

• My current c.v.

Papers:

• “Plutopopulism: Wealth and Trump’s Financial Base,” with Sean Kates, Eric Manning and Tali Mendelberg. American Political Science Review. Published online April 2, 2025. Altmetric Attention Score ranks article in #28 of 3,425 articles from APSR and in top 1% of 29 million research documents tracked.
• “Agenda Seeding: How 1960s Black Protests Moved Elites, Public Opinion and Voting,” American Political Science Review 114, no. 3 (2020): 638–59. Online Appendix. Google Scholar estimates 500+ citations (including prior drafts). Altmetric Attention Score ranks article #1 of 3,425 articles in APSR and in top 0.01% of 29 million research documents tracked.
• “Race as a ‘Bundle of Sticks’: Designs that Estimate Effects of Seemingly Immutable Characteristics,” Annual Review of Political Science, Vol. 19:499-522 (Volume publication date May 2016). Google Scholar estimates 500+ citations.
• “Can Tweets Kill a Movie? An Empirical Evaluation of the Bruno Effect,” with Alex Baron, Marlon Gerra, Katharine Lauderdale, Han Zhang. Computer Human Interaction 2010, April 10–15, 2010. Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

Under Review:

• “Text as Behavior”
  ABSTRACT: Text analysis typically focuses on content—such as sentiment or topic—but expression is also a form of effortful action. Building on this insight, I propose using simple features of open-ended tasks to study text as behavior. This approach treats expression as cognitively, emotionally and temporally “costly” for subjects but inexpensive for researchers. I show basic statistics like the number of characters can approximate effort and significantly improve estimation of quantities of interest, including the probability of turning out to vote, the likelihood of changing party identification, and psychological states about which a subject may not be fully aware. Further, these methods can convert nonresponse into informative data; validate survey instruments; serve as mechanism checks; be hard for a subject to “game”; work across different languages; and analogize well to real-world situations. In sum, text as behavior can help address a range of issues related to quantifying attitudes and actions.

Film:

• Unrest, 2017. Executive Producer of Sundance award-winning and Oscar-shortlisted documentary directed by Jennifer Brea. Film certified for continuing medical education credits and used in both research and clinical settings. Watch on YouTube.

Awards

• Georgia Lee Fellow in the Society of Hellman Fellows, UC Berkeley, Berkeley CA. 2024.
• Stanley Kelley, Jr. Teaching Award, Department of Politics, Princeton University. 2019.
• Bobst Faculty Research Grant, Bobst Center, Princeton University. 2015-16.
• Dissertation Fellowship, Project on Justice, Welfare and Economics, Harvard University. 2011-12.
• Sheila Biddle Ford Foundation Fellowship, W.E.B. Du Bois Institute, Harvard University. 2010-11.
• Henry Crown Fellowship, Aspen Institute. 2008-10.
• Graduate Research Fellowship, National Science Foundation. 2007-10.

Teaching

• PS140O: Projecting Power 2025
  • Lecture course on ethnic politics that combines films and traditional political science texts.
  • Course site with syllabus and slides
  • Evaluations:
    • “Instructor enhanced learning…?” 6.74 out of 7
    • “Instructor created an environment where I felt included…?” 6.74 out of 7
    • Full course evaluation
• FRS165: Projecting Power
  • Description: First-year seminar on ethnic politics that combined traditional political science texts and film
  • Syllabus
  • Evaluations:
    • 100% rated class “excellent” or “very good”
    • Overall rating: 4.8 out of 5
    • Full course evaluation
• POL346: Applied Quantitative Analysis
  • Description: Second semester undergrad stats
  • Syllabus, slides and handouts
  • Evaluations in 2020:
    • 100% would recommend course to other students (77% “strongly recommend” and 23% “recommend”)
    • Overall rating: 4.8 out of 5
    • Full course evaluation for 2020
  • Evaluations in 2019:
    • 95% would recommend course to other students (81% “strongly recommend” and 14% “recommend”)
    • Overall rating: 4.7 out of 5
    • Full course evaluation for 2019
• GOV30: American Government (while grad student at Harvard)
  • Description: Intro to American Government
  • Evaluations:
    • Awarded Certificate of Distinction in Teaching
    • Overall rating 4.5 out of 5
    • Full course evaluation

Book Project:

• The Protester’s Dilemma: How 1960s Black Protests Influenced Media and Politics.

Other Working Papers:

• “Conditional ethnocentrism: Experimental evidence from protests in the United States.”
• “How Anti-Immigrant Policies and Rhetoric Angers and Mobilizes Latinos,” with Nicholas Valentino, Ali Valenzuela and Matt Barreto. (Presented at APSA 2019)
• “Affluent politics and the rise of Trump,” with Tali Mendelberg and Sean Kates.
• “The Boundaries of Black Voting,” with Brandon McGhee.
• “Election Effects, Perceptions of Immigration Context and Self-Reported General and Mental Health among Latinos and Whites in the United States,” with Ali Valenzuela and Krista Perriera.

Google Scholar

• My Google Scholar page.