(Posted January 30, 2017)

HUNTINGDON, Pa. -- Erin O’Brien, professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, will speak at Juniata College on “Caught Between Waves, Movements and the Right: Hillary Clinton’s Presidential Bid” at 7 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 9, in Neff Lecture Hall in the von Liebig Center for Science.

            The lecture is free and open to the public. Her lecture is made possible through the Calvert N. Ellis Memorial Lecture endowment.

She is the author of "The Politics of Identity: Solidarity Building among America's Working Poor" and "Diversity in Contemporary American Politics and Government."

            O’Brien will analyze and explain how a variety of factors, populist movements and miscalculations influenced the 2016 presidential election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

            She is the author of “The Politics of Identity: Solidarity Building among America’s Working Poor” and “Diversity in Contemporary American Politics and Government.” She has published her work in such scholarly journals as the American Journal of Political Science, Perspectives in Politics, Women in Politics and the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography

            She has focused her scholarship on aspects of public policy and the politics of poverty and U.S. social welfare policy. In addition, she has researched issues in voting access policymaking and the role of gender in political participation and representation.

            O’Brien joined the University of Massachusetts faculty as an assistant professor in 2007 and was promoted to associate professor in 2010. Previously, she worked as an assistant professor of political science at Kent State University, in Kent, Ohio, from 2003 to 2007.

            She earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from John Carroll University, in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1997 and went on to earn a master’s degree in 2001 and a doctoral degree in political science in 2003 from American University in Washington, D.C.

O’Brien also has experience in retail politics, serving as a policy consultant for the successful mayoral campaign of Marty Walsh, currently mayor of Boston. She frequently serves as a political commentator in the New England media market and nationally.

She is a member of the editorial board of the journal Perspectives on Politics and is past president of the Southern Political Science Women’s Caucus and serves as co-program chair for the New England Political Science Association’s annual meeting.

Contact April Feagley at feaglea@juniata.edu or (814) 641-3131 for more information.