The Award for Excellence in Scholarship, Teaching, or Leadership by Contingent Faculty recognizes scholars who have made significant contributions to the field of political science without the support of tenure-track employment. This award is sponsored by APSA’s Committee on the Status of Contingent Faculty in the Profession. In this inaugural year of the award, the committee is pleased to recognize three outstanding awardees.
Hania Al-Shamat
Dr. Hania Al-Shamat is an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Economy and Public Policy (PEPP)—an interdisciplinary program bridging Political Science, Economics, and International Relations—from the University of Southern California. Her research and teaching interests span politics, economics, law, and history, with a particular focus on the evolution of political, economic, and legal institutions in the modern Middle East and North Africa (MENA). She has conducted field research in Egypt, Syria, Turkey, the UAE, and Lebanon, examining topics such as women’s entrepreneurship, migration, and institutional development.
Dr. Al-Shamat’s teaching approach emphasizes the internationalization of students’ learning experiences through globally engaged assignments, simulations, and experiential projects. She integrates social entrepreneurship into her curriculum to encourage students to connect theory with real-world solutions to global and local challenges. At UNC Charlotte, she teaches courses on international political economy, international organizations, and Middle Eastern politics, and serves as the academic advisor for the university’s Model United Nations program. She is deeply committed to mentoring students in conducting original research on the modern Middle East—many of whom have presented their work at national and international conferences.
Committee Citation:
The APSA Committee on the Status of Contingent Faculty in the Profession is honored to include Hania Abou al-Shamat among the winners of this year’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship, Teaching, or Leadership by Contingent Faculty. Professor al-Shamat is currently an assistant teaching professor at the University of North Carolina Charlotte. Since earning her PhD in 2008, Professor al-Shamat has had extensive experience as a researcher and teacher in the area of political economy and development. Dr. al-Shamat is lauded by her colleagues for her demonstrated excellence as well her commitment to continual improvement. She has received numerous awards and recognition throughout her career, including as the Fulbright Us-Scholar program.
Since arriving at her current institution in 2022, al-Shamat has earned university-level awards and grants in recognition of her work as an innovative educator focusing on global issues. Dr. al-Shamat has developed 10 courses, enhanced her department’s ability to serve students who seek to develop a richer perspective of the world both in terms of in-depth regional knowledge and breadth of issues related to international relations and comparative politics.
Dr. al-Shamat is by all accounts a superb teacher. Her contributions to students and her department go well beyond “normal” teaching. Dr. al-Shamat innovates inside the classroom environment and continues to educate and mentor students outside the classroom as well. Dr. al-Shamat has taken on significant student-facing service, reinvigorating the Model UN program, creating a virtual exchange program, planning a study abroad program, mentoring students applying to competitive fellowships, and connecting students with professionals working in international development. These examples of additional service or time-intensive teaching practices do not include the “normal” activities of research mentorship, application review, and committee service that Dr. al-Shamat executes as a matter of course.
Thomas Meredith
Thomas Meredith teaches courses in the history of political philosophy and American political thought. His research focuses on conscience and virtue in post-Christian democratic societies, examining how Nietzsche’s philosophy can illuminate the relationship between individual flourishing and civic life. His work has appeared in the American Political Science Review, Nietzsche-Studien, and The Review of Politics.
Committee Citation:
The APSA Committee on the Status of Contingent Faculty in the Profession is very happy to announce the inclusion of Professor Thomas Meredith among the winners of this year’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship, Teaching, or Leadership by Contingent Faculty. Professor Meredith completed his PhD in 2019 from the University of Toronto. He is a political theorist, specializing in the political theory of Nietzsche. In “The Radical Goals of Slave Morality in Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morality” (2020), Meredith offers a novel interpretation of Nietzsche’s famous concept of “slave morality.” Through a careful reading of The Genealogy of Morals, Meredith argues for an interpretation of Nietzsche that suggests a broad critique of morality as a whole, not just so-called “slave morality.” Meredith extends his analysis of Nietzsche’s “slave morality” in “Nietzsche’s Critique of Power: Mimicry and the Advantage of the Weak” (2025). Here, Meredith argues that Nietzsche was much more ambivalent about the concept of power than previous scholars have noted. In paying careful attention to the concept of mimicry in Nietzsche’s thought, Meredith suggests that Nietzsche was skeptical of the possibility of a noble exercise of power, and was much more skeptical of the desirability of power in general. Both of these articles demonstrate a steady commitment to a clearly defined research agenda while managing the uncertainties of contingent academic appointments.
Maria Puerta-Riera
Dr. Maria Puerta Riera is an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at Valencia College, where she teaches U.S. Government, State and Local Government, and International Politics, and at Colorado State University – Global Campus, teaching Introduction to Political Science. She previously served as a Visiting Professor at Valencia College and as an Associate Professor at Universidad de Carabobo in Venezuela, where she taught for 18 years, chaired the Department of Public Management, and coordinated the Research Group on Politics and Institutions.
Dr. Puerta Riera is a Research Fellow at GAPAC, focusing on sharp power in Latin America and the impact of authoritarianism and illiberalism on exiled communities. She serves as Co-Chair of the LASA Latinx Studies Section (2024–2026), a Media Analyst at Ad Fontes Media, and co-host of the podcast Mirada Semanal. Her research centers on democratic backsliding, hybrid regimes, authoritarianism, populism, and migration in Latin America. She holds a Ph.D. in Social Sciences and an M.A. in Political Science and Public Administration from Universidad de Carabobo.
Committee Citation:
The APSA Committee on the Status of Contingent Faculty in the Profession is very happy to announce the inclusion of Professor María Isabel Puerta Riera among the winners of this year’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship, Teaching, or Leadership by Contingent Faculty. Professor Puerta Riera has published widely in both English and Spanish on the subject of democratization, liberalism, regime change, and political representation in Latin America. Her work has appeared in peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes for scholarly audiences, as well as policy-oriented outlets and mass media for the general public. She has also contributed to large-scale international collaborative work, serving as a country coordinator for the Varieties of Democracy project. Her considerable research output represents a substantial contribution to the study of not only populism and regime change in Latin America, but also on issues of representation and participation of the Latinx community in the United States. Professor Puerta Riera has produced this body of scholarly work while also teaching—in-person and virtually—a wide variety of classes in comparative politics, international relations, American politics, and political science methodology at institutions in Venezuela, Puerto Rico, and the continental United States. While employed at multiple institutions, Professor Puerta Riera has also been a leader in service to the discipline by serving as Co-Chair of the Latinx Studies Section of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA). Through her research, teaching, and service, Professor Puerta Riera has demonstrated the valuable contributions to the discipline of political science that contingent faculty members produce even while working under the conditions of precarious employment facing so many scholars and educators operating without the security of tenure-track positions.