The APSA Diversity Fellowship Program, formerly the Minority Fellowship Program, was established in 1969 as a fellowship competition to diversify the political science profession. DFP provides support to students from underrepresented backgrounds applying to, or in the early stages of, a PhD program in political science. The goal of the program is to increase the number of scholars from minoritized backgrounds in the discipline and ultimately the professoriate. APSA has once again awarded a new cycle to provide support for PhD students currently in their first or second year as of Spring 2023. Please join us in congratulating the 2023-2024 class of fellows!
Joseph Rodriguez is a second year PhD student in the department of political science at Duke University. He received his BA in political science and philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley with highest honors. At Berkeley, he became interested in pursuing graduate school as a Ronald E. McNair Scholar. His research interests as a PhD student lie broadly in normative political theory, democratic theory, and constitutional law. Currently, he is researching the rights of nature in the Constitution of Ecuador, exploring the normative and legal implications it raises. He plans to continue to study constitutional design in his graduate program and connect it to contemporary debates in democratic theory. He has previously served as a Junior Fellow with the Library of Congress, where he researched the legal history of the Marshall Court and its jurisprudence. After graduate school, he hopes to pursue a career in academia, researching and teaching political theory.