Website: glenbillesbach.com
Research Interests: Political Theory | International Relations | Science & Technology Studies | Environmental Politics | Interpretive Methods
Glen Billesbach received his PhD in Political Science in 2025 and is currently a Postdoctoral Associate for Sustainability Studies in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Florida. In this position, he contributes to research and teaching at the intersection of political theory, international relations, and science and technology studies.
Glen’s scholarship employs historical, philosophical, and qualitative-interpretive methods to investigate the challenges and opportunities surrounding emerging technologies. His current research focuses on the role of technology and expertise in global climate politics, as well as how digital self-tracking tools shape self-interpretation and political agency.
His courses engage foundational and contemporary themes in political thought, sustainability, digital rights and principles, and experiential learning. As part of the Center for Adaptive Innovation, Resilience, Ethics and Science, he coordinates an interdisciplinary research and community partnership program (The Active Learning Program) aimed at fostering environmental wellbeing, social empowerment, resilient communities, and the responsible deployment of technology.
Website: maifrnd.com
Research Interests: National Identity | Narratives | Southeast Asia | Cultural
Politics
Florida. Her research examines the shaping of national narratives in Southeast
Asia, especially post-war Vietnam, focusing on how theatre and multisensory
performance influence identity formation and state-building. Mai’s
interdisciplinary work draws on interpretive methods and qualitative inquiry to
investigate political communication, cultural politics, and Southeast Asian
international relations. In the classroom, she emphasizes active, collaborative
learning through Team-Based Learning, and her commitment to inclusive, high-impact teaching was recognized with the 2025 Best Graduate Teacher Award in Political Science.
Website: pgupte.com
Research Interests: : Civil-military relations | Democratization | Global South | Party systems | Authoritarian regimes
Florida. My dissertation focuses on how military entrepreneurship has influenced democratization in some Southeast Asian and Latin American countries. Broadly, my research deals with issues related to civil-military relations, persistence of authoritarian regimes and challenges to democratic consolidation in the Global South.
Website: sarahksnowmann.wixsite.com/website
Research Interests: Comparative Politics, ethnic politics, European politics, institutions, and political rhetoric.
Sarah Katherine Snowmann is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the University of Florida. She received her BA from Stetson University. Her research addresses intra-ethnic political competition in Europe; in particular, the intersection of institutional design, within-group economic inequality, and ethnic political party rhetoric in Northern Ireland, the Basque Country in Spain, and Flanders in Belgium. Her broader research agenda focuses on the role of institutions in shaping ethnic party rhetoric within a comparative context, such as her publication in the Nationalities Papers on the role of Brexit in shaping nationalist party rhetoric on the European Union.
Website: longxiao-lx.com
Research Interests: U.S.-China Relations | U.S. Foreign Policy | China Politics | Securitization | International Governance
Long Xiao is currently a PhD candidate in Political Science at the University of Florida. His research interests focus on U.S.-China relations and U.S. foreign policy, with particular emphasis placed on securitization. His dissertation has been devoted to examining the motivations and actors responsible for the heightened perception of China as a threat in U.S. congressional discourse over the past decade. His research has been published in the International Journal of Strategic Communication and Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene.
Long Xiao is originally from Shenzhen, China. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Pittsburg State University in Political Science and International Studies in 2019.
Website: anqiyang.webnode.page/
Research Interests: Regime transition | State-building | Late-Development | Authoritarian Politics | Qualitative Methods | Comparative Historical Analysis | China
Anqi Yang is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the University of Florida. She is a comparativist with a regional focus of East Asia and Western Europe. Her research agenda has been driven by three broad puzzles: What are the origins of democracy and dictatorship? What drives the formation of modern states, their success and failure? What explains successful development and the lack thereof? Her dissertation examines the distinct pathways and conditions of democratization in the late-developing world.
Before coming to UF, she obtained her master’s degrees in Social Sciences at the University of Chicago, U.S., and in Politics at Sun Yat-sen University, China. She received her BA in German at Zhejiang University, China, and did a one-semester exchange at Technische Universität Berlin, Germany.