Meet 2019-2020 APSA Congressional Fellow Joel Reed, University of Missouri

Joel Reed, PhD- University of Missouri

The American Political Science Association Congressional Fellowship Program is a highly selective, nonpartisan program devoted to expanding knowledge and awareness of Congress. Since 1953, it has brought select political scientists, journalists, federal employees, health specialists, and other professionals to Capitol Hill to experience Congress at work through fellowship placements on congressional staffs.

Joel Lansing Reed earned his PhD in Communication from the University of Missouri. His research focuses on the rhetorics of political compromise and coalition building, with special emphasis on the communication of political moderates. His dissertation examined the communication strategies of intraparty factions and party bolters in the elections of 1884, 1948, and 2016. He is interested in the role of cross-pressures in partisan identity and organizational identification and how those cross pressures shape intraparty political movements. Joel utilizes rhetorical criticism, quantitative methods, and content analysis to study a variety of mediated communication contexts. His research has appeared in the Journal of Communication and Religion, Mass Communication & Society, and the 2018 book An Unprecedented Election: Media, Communication, and the Electorate in the 2016 Campaign. Joel grew up in Southwest Missouri. He graduated with a B.S. in Political Science and an M.A. in Communication from Missouri State University. During his doctoral studies, Joel served as a Research Associate with the Political Communication Institute at the University of Missouri and worked as a farmhand in Mid-Missouri.

Learn more about the Congressional Fellowship Program.