Abigail Hemmen
Fields of Study: American Politics, Methodology
American Politics Areas of Interest: Online rhetoric & mobilization, State legislators, Public opinion & perception, Moral panics & conspiracies
Methodology Areas of Interest: Experimental survey design, Sentiment analysis, Mixed methods
Abigail is a 3rd year Ph.D student in the University of Notre Dame’s Political Science Department. Her first field is in American Politics, with her primary interests being in the partisan online behavior of elite and non-elite actors. Her second field is in Methodology, where she is interested in the numerous ways in which online social and political behavior can be studied. She plans to write her dissertation about the online rhetoric used by state legislators, as well as the public’s reaction to their posts.
Before attending Notre Dame, Abigail graduated Summa Cum Laude from Indiana State University with a double major in Political Science and English Literature. Her senior thesis compared the rhetoric of FDR’s fireside chats to President Trump’s official COVID-19 press conferences.