Aaron Alexander Zubia’s research uncovers how our ideas about God, nature, and human nature shape our political thought and discourse. In his first book, The Political Thought of David Hume: The Origins of Liberalism and the Political Imagination, Zubia focuses on Hume, the Scottish Enlightenment thinker who is arguably the greatest philosopher to have written in English. Zubia’s narrative traces the development of the Epicurean tradition, which Hume appropriated, and which supplies the philosophic framework for liberal politics. Zubia’s teaching, like his research, examines the moral and philosophic foundations of the good society and explores the beliefs that underlie conservative and revolutionary postures. Zubia teaches regularly on the American political tradition and has led an independent study on metaphysics and politics in the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition.

Kinder Institute Distinguished Faculty Fellow, University of Missouri

Colleen A. Sheehan is Professor of Politics in the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University. She has served in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and on the Pennsylvania State Board of Education. She is the recipient of the Earhart Fellowship, Bradley Fellowship, National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, Mary and Kennedy Smith Fellowship of the James Madison Program of Princeton University, the Garwood Fellowship of the James Madison Program of Princeton University, the Claremont Institute Henry Salvatori Prize, and the Martin Manley Teacher of the Year Award at Villanova University, where she taught for over thirty years before joining the faculty at ASU.  

Daniel Carpenter is the Allie S. Freed Professor of Government and Chair of the Department of Government at Harvard University. His award-winning research explores how ordinary people have shaped democracy through petitioning and public mobilization. He is the author of Democracy by Petition: Popular Politics in Transformation, 1790–1870 and several other acclaimed works on political development, regulation, and the history of American governance.

Professor James R. Stoner, Jr. (Ph.D., Harvard University, 1987) has teaching and research interests in political theory, English common law, and American constitutionalism. He is the author of Common-Law Liberty: Rethinking American Constitutionalism and Common Law and Liberal Theory: Coke, Hobbes, and the Origins of American Constitutionalism. In 2009, he was named a Senior Fellow of the Witherspoon Institute of Princeton, New Jersey. He was the 2010 recipient of the Honors College Sternberg Professorship at LSU.

He has taught at LSU since 1988, chaired the Department of Political Science from 2007 to 2013, and served as Acting Dean of the Honors College in fall 2010. 

Joshua Dunn serves as Executive Director of the Institute of American Civics at the Howard H. Baker School of Public Policy and Public Affairs. His research and teaching focus on constitutional law and history, education policy, federalism, and freedom of speech and religion. His books include Complex Justice: The Case of Missouri v. Jenkins (University of North Carolina Press), From Schoolhouse to Courthouse: The Judiciary’s Role in American Education (Brookings Institution Press), and Passing on the Right: Conservative Professors in the Progressive University (Oxford University Press). He writes a quarterly article on law and education for the journal Education Next and his research and commentary have been featured in outlets such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, The Atlantic, and Los Angeles Times. 

Justin Dyer is a professor of government and the inaugural dean of UT Austin's School of Civic Leadership.

Dyer writes and teaches in the fields of American political thought, jurisprudence, and constitutionalism, with an emphasis on the perennial philosophical tradition of natural law. He is the author or editor of eight books and numerous articles, essays and book reviews. His most recent book, with Kody Cooper, is The Classical and Christian Origins of American Politics: Political Theology, Natural Law, and the American Founding, published in 2022 by Cambridge University Press. 

Dr. Kirstin Birkhaug teaches Introduction to American Politics, State and Local Government, and all upper-level political theory courses, including American Political and Social Thought, Ancient and Medieval Political Thought, Modern Political Thought, and Contemporary Political Thought at Hope College. Dr. Birkhaug is also a member of the Emmaus Scholars faculty and the faculty advisor for the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Leadership Fellows Program at Hope College. She joined the Department of Political Science in 2023.

She studies early American political thought, with a focus on women's contributions. Her recent projects have examined topics including citizenship, liberty, constitutionalism, and the views of historical figures such as Phillis Wheatley, Mercy Otis Warren, John Adams, and Alexis de Tocqueville. She is the book reviews editor of the Journal of Religion, Culture & Democracy. 

Matthew Brogdon is the Larry H. and Gail Miller Family Senior Director of the Center for Constitutional Studies at Utah Valley University. He has taught and published extensively on American political thought and constitutional development.

His scholarship encompasses the creation and development of the federal courts, judicial federalism, religious liberty in colonial constitutionalism, the politics of nullification and secession, and the critical importance of the corporate form in the constitution of civil liberties. Through CCS’s partnership with Oxford’s Quill Project, Dr. Brogdon works to make the tradition of constitutional statecraft on display in American constitutional conventions accessible to jurists, scholars, teachers, and students.

Dr. Brogdon earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Political Science at the University of West Florida and his Ph.D. in Political Science from Baylor University.

Michael Zuckert is the former Nancy R. Dreux Professor of Political Science. He works in political theory and constitutional studies, which he has published extensively. He has published Natural Rights and the New Republicanism, the Natural Rights Republic, Launching Liberalism, and (with Catherine Zuckert) The Truth About Leo Strauss, in addition to many other articles. He has also edited (with Derek Webb) The Antifederal Writings of the Melancton Smith Circle. He has a book, Leo Strauss and the Problem of Political Philosophy (with Catherine Zuckert), coming out in the spring from the University of Chicago Press. He is completing Natural Rights and the New Constitutionalism, a study of American constitutionalism in a theoretical context.

Paul Carrese is a professor in the School of Civic & Economic Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University. For two decades, he was a professor at the U.S. Air Force Academy, co-founding its honors program, which combines liberal arts and leadership education. He teaches and publishes on the American founding, American constitutional and political thought, civic education, and American grand strategy.  He co-led a national study, Educating for American Democracy, on history and civics in K-12 schools and serves on the Academic Council of the Jack Miller Center for America’s Founding Principles and History and the Civic Education Committee of the American Political Science Association. He is a Senior Fellow with the Jack Miller Center, and in 2025 was a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

Dr. Vincent Phillip Muñoz is the Tocqueville Professor of Political Science and Concurrent Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame, and founding director of its Center for Citizenship & Constitutional Government. A leading scholar on religious liberty and the American Founding, his work has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court and published in top journals. His most recent book, Religious Liberty and the American Founding (2022), was supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship.

Richard Avramenko is the director of the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership and the Editor-in-Chief of the Political Science Reviewer. He has a BA in Political Science from the University of Calgary, an MA in Political Science from Carleton University, and a Ph.D. in Government from Georgetown University.

Avramenko is the author of "Courage: The Politics of Life and Limb" (2011), the co-editor of "Friendship and Politics: Essays in Political Thought" (2008), "Dostoevsky’s Political Philosophy" (2013), "Aristocratic Souls in Democratic Times" (2018), "Canadian Conservative Political Thought" (2022), and "Aristocratic Voices: Traditional Alternatives to Liberalism, Populism and Radical Egalitarianism" (2024). 

Sean Beienburg, a Phoenix native, studied politics and history at Pomona College and earned his Ph.D. in politics from Princeton. He taught at Haverford and Lehigh before joining ASU, where he now serves as Associate Director of SCETL and Director of the Center for American Civics. His work focuses on the U.S. and Arizona constitutions, federalism, political thought, and executive power. He directs the Arizona Constitution Project and has published two books on federalism and Prohibition. Beyond constitutional studies, he has explored political themes in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy and the Daniel Craig-era James Bond films.

Steven Skultety earned a BA from the University of Montana and a PhD in Philosophy from Northwestern University before joining the faculty of the University of Mississippi in 2006. In 2012, he became Chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion and, in 2021, director of the Declaration of Independence Center for the Study of American Freedom.

Dr. Shelley is the Director of Graduate Studies and Assistant Professor at Arizona State University’s School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership.

Jeff Davis is the Program Director of Civic Education at Arizona State University’s Center for American Civics. In this role, Jeff has been hosting professional development workshops for K-12 educators to learn how to strengthen civic education through inquiry approaches with primary sources. Before his current role, Jeff taught Social Studies for 18 years, with subjects including government, economics, American history, European history, and comparative politics at various grade levels, while also coaching school extracurricular programs. He is a doctoral student at ASU’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers’ College, seeking an Ed.D. in Educational Innovation and Leadership. His research focuses on methods to teach students the skills of civil dialogue through controversial topics in history and politics.

Julie Silverbrook is Vice President of Civic Education at the National Constitution Center. From 2020 to 2024, she served as Senior Director of Partnerships and Constitutional Scholar in Residence at iCivics. Before that, she served as Executive Director of The Constitutional Sources Project (ConSource) in Washington, DC, from 2012 to 2020. She regularly writes and lectures on the United States Constitution, its history, and the importance of civic education to the health of the American republic. Julie has over a decade and a half of experience in growth projects for non-profit organizations, cultivating partnerships, fundraising, coalition-building, and business development and management. She holds a J.D. from the William & Mary Law School, receiving the National Association of Women Lawyers Award and the Thurgood Marshall Award and serving as a Senior Articles Editor on the William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal. 

Sarah E. Suggs is a third-generation Arizonan whose extensive career has taken her to the east and west coasts before returning to her native state in 2001. She has served as an executive for Pivotal Group, a private equity and real estate investment firm, KSL, a KKR, Kohlberg, Kravis, and Roberts company, and as Executive Director of The National Women’s Hall of Fame in New York, which recognizes and celebrates the achievements of extraordinary American women. Committed to continuing education, Ms. Suggs completed the Harvard Kennedy School Executive Education program, Performance Measurement for Effective Management of Nonprofit Organizations.