The Common Ground team consists of researchers from across the University of Alberta. We work in various departments on campuses across the province.
Jared Wesley is the lead researcher for Common Ground. Born and raised in a small-town in Manitoba, Jared Wesley has lived much of his adult life in Edmonton and Calgary. He is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Alberta. He has led a number of large research teams involving over two dozen interdisciplinary collaborators from across Canada. Jared is a pracademic -- a practicing political scientist and former public servant -- whose career path to the University of Alberta Department of Political Science has included senior management positions in the Alberta Public Service (APS). He has returned to academia to study and teach the politics of Western Canada.
Feo Snagovsky’s research focuses on the comparative analysis of elections and political behaviour, and particularly in the role that political elites play in shaping identity and public opinion. His recent work examined how the descriptive representation of ethnic minorities in Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom influences the political attitudes of members of those groups – in particular, how they feel about the responsiveness of government.
Michelle Maroto’s research broadly focuses on inequality, economic insecurity, and social policy. She has experience with a variety of research methods, including online and resume-based audit studies as part of her SSHRC-funded project, Employment Discrimination in Hiring People with Disabilities.
Gillian Harvey’s research and practice include evidence-based information design principles and practices which include benchmarking, prototyping, user testing, and evaluation. Her recent work has revealed how descriptive analysis of message content facilitates understanding for underrepresented populations and for social good.
Founding Members
Mark Nuttall is a social anthropologist with extensive experience of ethnographic methods. His research focuses on locality, identity and memory, climate change, extractive industries, conservation, environmental politics, and geopolitics in North America, Europe and the Circumpolar North. He has carried out fieldwork in Greenland, Canada, Alaska, Finland, Scotland and Wales.
Frédéric Boily’s involvement in this project complements his SSHRC study (« Droitisation et comparison des droites intellectuelles au Canada: 2006-2016 », 2018-2021). Boily has published extensively on this topic, notably La droite en Alberta, D’Ernest Manning à Stephen Harper (PUL, 2013). He also works extensively on populism in Alberta and Quebec.
Lars Hallstrom is the Director of the Alberta Centre for Sustainable Rural Communities (ACSRC) since 2009. He has overseen over 50 projects related to rural and community resilience in a range of sectors, including economic development, natural resource management, and environmental sustainability. He has published/co-published two books on rural issues in Canada since 2016.
David Rast III’s research broadly focuses on leadership within and between groups. More specifically, he studies how leaders can bridge intergroup divisions to build a unified identity and achieve a joint goal. He regularly publishes on topics related political group leadership, political attitudes, and party affiliation, including improving relations between conservatives and liberals.
Kyle Murray has a long standing interest in understanding human judgement and decision making in the context of online and new media environments. Studying how people interact with their political environment is a natural extension of his prior work.
Research Assistants
Sophia Drimmel, UARE Intern Research Assistant, Political Sciences (Technical University of Munich)
Sophia Drimmel is a Political Sciences undergraduate at the Technical University of Munich, Germany. Her research area particularly focuses on the topic of NeuroPolitics.
Garin Alfaro, Undergraduate Research Associate, Political Science (North Campus)
Garin is a fourth-year political science student at the University of Alberta. His research with the Common Ground team focuses on political polarization in Albertan society, specifically regarding the distance separating Albertans’ political values and ideological positions and the ways that they relate to each other across the political aisle.
Victoria Matajka, Graduate Research Assistant, Political Science (North Campus)
Victoria is a Policy Studies Master’s student in the Department of Political Science at the University of Alberta. Victoria received their undergraduate degree in political science and sociology in 2021. They are working with Dr. Jared Wesley on the Public Servants’ Role Project, and occasionally with the Viewpoint Alberta team, doing research and data analysis.
Matthieu Petit, Research Assistant, Philosophy & Political Science (North Campus)
Matthieu holds a first-class double honors degree in philosophy and political science. His concentrations are early modern philosophy, German idealism, and existentialism. He plans to continue his graduate studies in philosophy.
Joely Bragg, Graduate Student Intern (North Campus)
Joely is a Master’s student at the University of Alberta studying policy studies. Her research interests focus on federal-provincial relations in Canada, especially Alberta’s relationship with federal government.
Enni Leponiemi, Mitacs Intern Research Assistant, Politics & International Relations (University of Aberdeen)
Enni is third-year Politics and International Relations student at the University of Aberdeen (UK). Her academic interests include the contemporary challenges in the European Union and the EU’s evolving global role. Her research is focused on changes in European Security, the politicization of European integration, and the concepts of Fortress Europe, Migration and Eurosceptism.
Victoria Matajka, Graduate Research Assistant, Political Science (North Campus)
Victoria is a Policy Studies Master’s student in the Department of Political Science at the University of Alberta. Victoria received their undergraduate degree in political science and sociology in 2021. They are working with Dr. Jared Wesley on the Public Servants’ Role Project, and occasionally with the Viewpoint Alberta team, doing research and data analysis.
Abel Zeleke, High School Research Assistant
Abel Zeleke is an employed high school research assistant at the University of Alberta. Abel’s main interests lean towards coding, elderly political opinion, and the historical past of Canadian politics.
Evan Walker, Graduate Research Assistant, Political Science (North Campus)
Evan Walker is a second year MA student in the Department of Political Science at the University of Alberta. Evan’s research focuses on the political consequences of regional economic decline. In particular, how populist support metastasizes in regions left behind by globalization and new global trade patterns.
Taofiki Okunola, Graduate Research Assistant, Political Science (North Campus)
Taofiki Okunola is a PhD student in Political Science at the University of Alberta. He received his Bachelor’s in Political Science (Frist Class Honours) from the University of Ibadan (Nigeria) and a Master’s Degree in International Relations at the University of Westminter (UK). His research is focused on the role of international organizations in addressing statelessness.
Marta Dvuliat, Mitacs Intern, International Relations (Ivan Franko National University of Lviv)
Marta Dvuliat is a fourth-year International Relations student at Ivan Franko National University of Lviv (Ukraine) and a third-year Political Science student at the University of Alberta. Her academic interests include international relations, international organizations, gender equality, and human rights.
Alicia Bednarski, Graduate Research Assistant, Political Science (North Campus)
Alicia is a Master of Arts student in Political Science at the University of Alberta. Her research interests include the politics of gender, race, immigration, and citizenship in settler colonial contexts.
Alexandra Ballos, Undergraduate Research Assistant, Political Science & Women and Gender Studies (North Campus)
Alex is a fifth-year honours interdisciplinary undergraduate student at the University of Alberta. Her research examines right-wing extremism, with a specific focus on the influence of women involved in far-right movements. She aims to discover distinct connections between female far-right discourse and right-wing theory.
Timothy Tsz-Him Chan, Mitacs Intern Research Assistant, Politics & Public Administration, University of Hong Kong
Timothy is a final year undergraduate student from the University of Hong Kong. His research interest lies in the sources of populism, elitism and nationalism in public opinion and their implications. He is currently assisting in a project on white identity and its effect on people’s attitudes, policy preferences, and behaviors in Canada.
Clare Buckley, Graduate Research Assistant, Political Science (North Campus)
Clare received her Master of Arts in Political Science from the University of Alberta. Her research focused on Canadian political parties and elections, specifically influences on campaign platform development.
Nikita Sleptcov, Graduate Research Assistant, Political Science (North Campus)
Nikita is a PhD student in Political Science. Nikita’s main interests lie in the methodology of automated textual analysis and other quantitative methods as well as public opinion & political behavior research. His research is focused on the attitudes towards climate change and energy transition.
Rissa Reist, Graduate Student, Political Science (North Campus)
Rissa is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at the University of Alberta. Her research focuses on the relationship between political humour and settler-colonial violence. She holds a master's degree in political science from the University of Alberta and a master's degree in political communication from the University of Leeds.
Aarushi Dhaka, Mitacs Intern Research Assistant, Engineering (Vellore Institute of Technology)
Aarushi is an Engineering Junior in Electronics and Communication from Vellore Institute of Technology (India). She has a significant interest in data analytics. She will be learning and trying some concepts by analyzing sentiments of people during election times, and how it affects one’s thought process.
Amy Vachon-Chabot, Graduate Research Assistant, Political Science (North Campus)
Amy received her Master of Arts in Political Science from the University of Alberta. Her thesis research focused on the impact of political memes on potential voters by conducting an online experiment.
Lauren Hill, Graduate Research Assistant, Political Science (North Campus)
Lauren is a second-year Master of Arts student in the Department of Political Science at the University of Alberta. Prior to attending the University of Alberta, Lauren received her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and History at McGill University. Lauren’s graduate research focuses on the influence of the Saskatchewan Party on contemporary Saskatchewan political culture.
Fajr Ahmad, Mitacs Intern,
Communication (Arizona State University)
Fajr Ahmad is a Communication major completing her undergraduate degree at Barrett, the Honors College at Arizona State University. Her education is focused on intercultural and interpersonal communication.
Stella Gomes, UARE Intern Research Assistant, International Relations (University of São Paulo)
Stella Gomes is an undergraduate in International Relations at the University of São Paulo (Brazil). Her research interests focus on Brazilian and Latin American Politics. She currently assists Dr. Jared Wesley in the Becoming Albertan Project, a study of youth political socialization in Alberta.
Michael Griffiths, Graduate Research Assistant, Political Science (North campus)
Michael is an honors political science student working jointly on his thesis and as URI research associate on the Common Ground team, under the supervision of Dr. Wesley. His thesis and URI project undertake a content analysis of Jason Kenney's Twitter, looking at the frequency and tone with which he discusses energy and the environment, and how this can shape voters' perception of each.
Savannah Ribeiro, Graduate Research Assistant, Political Science (North Campus)
Savannah Ribeiro (she/her) is a first-year PhD student in the Political Science department. Her main fields of study are comparative politics and political theory, focusing on nationalism, white nationalism, and how necropolitics/politics of the dead figures into these ideologies.
Olivia Labelle, Undergraduate Research Assistant, Political Science (North Campus)
Olivia is a 3rd-year honors student majoring in Political Science at the University of Alberta. Her academic journey is driven by a profound concern for Alberta's response to the climate crisis.
Sam Clark, Mitacs Intern Research Assistant, Geography (Durham University)
Sam is a second-year undergraduate student in Geography at Durham University (UK). His research explores politics and performativity of young adults’ identity in relation to normative lifecourse expectations, particularly the nexus between familial expectations and cultural norms in determining the political allegiances, voting behaviour and employment ambitions of young people.
Student Associates
Robert Bilak, Undergraduate Research Assistant, Political Science/Economics
(North Campus)
When he joined common ground, Robert was a fourth-year Political Science and Economics Double Major, and a second-year scholar in the Peter Lougheed Leadership College. He has also been heavily involved in governance on campus, serving on many University committees and boards. He hopes to enter law school in the near future.
Thomas Brown, Student Associate, Political Science & History (North Campus)
Tom is a fourth-year undergraduate student at the University of Alberta, working towards a combined honours degree in political science and history. His research explores the key features of polarized political dialogue, specifically looking at discourse across the progressive-conservative divide in Alberta.
Kiera Fischer, Student Associate, Political Science (North Campus)
Kiera is a third-year undergraduate student in honours political science at the University of Alberta. Her research examines differences in the Alberta government’s response to various protests via social media. She is specifically interested in uncovering the extent to which the government contributes to perceived status threat among white, middle-aged, blue-collar Albertans.
Jason Timmons, Student Associate,
Political Science (North Campus)
Now a student in the UAlberta MA in Policy Studies Program, Jason was an undergraduate student researcher in the department of political science. His research investigated rural consciousness and the democratic deficit in relation to healthcare services in Alberta.
Timothy Van den Brink, Graduate Student, Political Science (Campus Saint-Jean)
Timothy is a master’s student studying under Frédéric Boily. Timothy’s research investigates campaigns during the 2019 Albertan Elections in comparison with populist governments in Alberta’s political history.
Harnoor Kochar, Student Associate,
Political Science (North Campus)
Harnoor is a third-year undergraduate student at the University of Alberta in the department of political science. She was awarded a Tomorrow’s Ideas, Now Undergraduate Research Mini-grant by the Undergraduate Research Initiative and the Kule Institute for Advanced Study (KIAS) to conduct a research project along the APCP team. Her research focuses on how young Albertans negotiate their identities within the province’s perceived petro-nationalist political culture.
Rian Hoyle, Student Associate, Political Science & History (North Campus)
Rian is a third-year undergraduate student studying political science and history at the University of Alberta. Her research looks at the connections between Canadian identity and hockey in our country. Her project evaluates social issues within hockey through wealth, gender, and race inequality, and how those issues are left unresolved yet the sport remains a symbol of Canadianna.
Maura Roberts, Graduate Student,
Political Science (North Campus)
Maura is a non-binary white settler scholar in the 2nd year of the PhD program in the department of political science. They’re currently working on better understanding the links between conservatism, Alberta’s political culture, and settler colonialism.
Mitchell Pawluk, Student Associate, Political Science (North Campus)
Mitchell is a fourth-year undergraduate student at the University of Alberta, majoring in political science and minoring in philosophy. His research focuses on discourses of normativity and marginalization in Alberta’s political culture, specifically concentrating on changes in these discourses from the premiership of Ralph Klein to the current premiership of Jason Kenney.
Trista Peterson, Student Associate,
Political Science (North Campus)
Trista is a fourth-year student in the University of Alberta's political science department. Her research focuses on conservative ideology and political culture in the context of Canadian politics. Specifically, she is researching the concepts of neoliberalism and red-toryism as distinct factions of Conservative party ideology in Alberta's provincial and Canada's federal politics.