Meet Semra Sevi, 2019 First Generation Scholar in the Profession

Semra Sevi is a doctoral candidate in Université de Montréal’s political science department where she is a member of the Research Chair in Electoral Studies, Canada Research Chair in Electoral Democracy and the Centre for the Study of Democratic Citizenship. Her research interests include voting behaviour, political representation and political institutions. She earned her Masters and Honours B.A. in political science from the University of Toronto where she built a unique dataset detailing the district level data for all Canadian federal candidates since 1867. The dataset includes variables for unique id (which standardizes candidates names across time), names of candidates, riding names, unique identification number for each riding, province, date of birth, gender, occupation, occupation categories, party affiliation, party categories, switchers, incumbency status, vote shares, raw votes, indigenous origins, candidates who identify as a member of the LGBTQ2+ community and so on. You can find the dataset here.  Her work has been published in the Canadian Journal of Political Science, Party Politics and Turkish Studies.  She is first in her family to attend university. The APSA travel grant supported Semra to attend APSA (which she attended for the first time) and to present her solo paper on Youth Representation using the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems dataset.

About the APSA First Generation Scholar in the Profession Travel Reimbursement Grant
In 2015, the APSA Executive Council approved a new standing Committee on First Generation Higher Education Scholars in the Profession, parallel to the existing APSA status committees.  The goal is to bring focused attention to the ways in which class, economic inequality, and mobility can affect political scientists’ ability to thrive educationally and professionally, perhaps throughout their careers. The APSA Committee on the Status of First Generation Scholars matched contributions that were made to the APSA Annual Fund during one week in September 2019 to support the professional development support of first gen scholars in the profession.  Learn more.