This bio is current as of 2024.
Kevin Angell is a rising 3rd year Ph.D. student in Political Economy at the University of Chicago. He focuses on studying American Politics using empirical methods. From 2024-2027, he is a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program fellow. Prior to returning to academia, he worked as a data scientist for Zotec Partners, a health care technology firm, and as a non-profit leader. Angell graduated summa cum laude from Notre Dame in May 2020.
At Notre Dame, Angell’s research focused on three main topics, American legislative politics, applied microeconomics, and religion and politics. Angell’s senior thesis, written jointly across the Department of Political Science and the Department of Economics, empirically evaluated the impact of different factors of legislative professionalism on legislative policy innovativeness in US state legislatures. His thesis, advised by Professor Jeffrey Harden (political science and applied and computational mathematics and statistics) and Professor Ethan Lieber (economics), found strong evidence that pursuing legislative professionalization via greater staff support increases overall innovativeness while pursuing professionalization via longer legislative sessions negatively impacts overall innovation. Inside of applied microeconomics, Angell worked at the Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities where he helped conduct impact evaluations for domestic anti-poverty programs and research the root causes of the recent opioid crisis. Finally, inside of religion and politics, from sophomore through senior year, Angell also assisted Professor Andrew Gould with his research on the intellectual history and evolution of religion in comparative politics. Funded by a DaVinci grant from the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts, Angell wrote “Missionaries, Mechanisms, and Democracy” with Professor Jeff Harden. The paper, a Users’ Working Paper with the Varieties of Democracy Institute used causal mediation to empirically examine the relationship between Protestant missionaries and democracy in the non-Western world.
At Notre Dame, Angell presented his work at several conferences including the Northeastern Political Science Annual Conference. In support of his research, Angell received funding from the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts (the Da Vinci Summer Research Grant), the Glynn Family Honors Program, and the Kellogg Institute. Angell was an early inductee of Phi Beta Kappa and was awarded the Gary F. Barnabo Writing Prize from the Department of Political Science, the Lawrence J. Lewis Award for Community Service from the Department of Economics, and first place in the Hesburgh Library Research Award thesis competition
This profile was current when he was part of the on-campus Kellogg community.
Kevin Angell’s current research focuses on two main topics, American legislative politics and religion and politics. Angell’s senior thesis, written jointly across the Department of Political Science and the Department of Economics, examines the economic and structural determinants of policy innovativeness in US state legislatures using a novel panel dataset. The thesis is advised by Professor Jeffrey Harden (political science and applied and computational mathematics and statistics) and Professor Ethan Lieber (economics). Inside of religion and politics, Angell is currently finishing preparing a coauthored journal article entitled “Missionaries, Mechanisms, and Democracy” for publication. Written with Professor Harden, the paper, currently a users’ working paper with the Varieties of Democracy Institute, uses a causal inference approach to empirically examine the relationship between Protestant missionaries and democracy in the non-Western world. Angell also assists Professor Andrew Gould with his research on the intellectual history and evolution of religion and comparative politics.
Angell has presented his work at several conferences including the Northeastern Political Science Annual Conference and the de Nicola Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture Fall Conference. In support of his research, Angell has received funding from the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts (the Da Vinci Summer Research Grant) the Glynn Family Honors Program, and the Kellogg Institute, where he has received a conference travel grant. Angell is also a Sorin Fellow with the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture and a member of the College of Arts and Letters Honesty Committee.
Thesis Title: Professional Innovation? An Analysis of the Determinants of State Policy Innovation
Thesis Advisers: Jeffrey Harden and Ethan Lieber
