The Kenneth Sherrill Prize is presented annually by the American Political Science Association (APSA) to honor the best doctoral dissertation proposal for an empirical study of lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) topics in political science.
Citation from the Award Committee:
Nicholas D’Amico is the winner of the 2025 Kenneth Sherrill Prize, which recognizes the best doctoral dissertation proposal for an empirical study of lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender topics in political science. D’Amico’s project seeks to explain the puzzle of LGBTQ political behavior in the United States: LGBTQ Americans are both more politically active and more consistent in their political preferences than dominant models of political participation would predict. Drawing from the literatures on social identity and intersectionality, he theorizes that group consciousness plays a key role in shaping the political identities and behaviors of LGBTQ people and that the development of this consciousness is in turn shaped by the intersectionally divergent experiences of LGBTQ people. He lays out an ambitious, mixed-methods approach to testing his claims, beginning with secondary analysis of existing surveys of LGBTQ Americans, followed by qualitative interviews to explore the types of experiences that LGBTQ respondents indicate have affected their own sense of group consciousness. He then plans to field an original survey of LGBTQ Americans, with one or more embedded experiments testing the causal relationship between group consciousness and specific political behaviors.
The Ken Sherrill Prize Committee is impressed with D’Amico’s project and its potential contribution to the literatures on LGBTQ politics, group consciousness, and American political behavior. Given the scarcity of survey data on LGBTQ respondents, D’Amico’s work has the potential to be an important data contribution to the discipline.
Nick D’Amico is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Political Science at Syracuse University. His research focuses on public opinion and political psychology, with specific interests in how identities and affect shape political attitudes and behavior. Nick’s dissertation examines the outcomes and contours of LGBTQ political identity in contemporary American politics. He also serves as a Graduate Research Associate for the U.S. Policy Agendas Project. His work is forthcoming in PS: Political Science & Politics and the Encyclopedia of Political Communication. Prior to Syracuse, Nick earned both a B.A. and M.A. in Political Science from Villanova University.
APSA thanks the committee members for their service: Dr. Ellen Andersen (Chair) of the University of Vermont, Dr. Gabriele Magni of Loyola Marymount University, and Dr. Carly Thomsen of Rice University