Education  /  Research  /  Teaching  /  CV

Alice Cho Timken

I am an incoming Assistant Professor of Political Science (Public Law) at Gettysburg College. I study high courts, judicial independence, and judicial behavior in North America and Europe using quantitative and mixed methods approaches. My work has appeared in Democratization, and my dissertation won the Doctoral Prize in Political Science from Syracuse University.

I grew up in Albany, California. Before graduate school, I worked for an INGO in refugee rights and in marketing and e-commerce for consumer brands in New York City. I received a Ph.D. in political science from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University, a master's degree from New York University, and a bachelor's degree from Pomona College in Claremont, California.

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Education
Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY
Ph.D. in Political Science
2021-2026

Dissertation: “High Courts During Democratic Decline.”

  • Recipient of the Doctoral Prize for originality and research quality from Syracuse University (2026)
Specialized Training
Certificate in University Teaching at Syracuse University (2023-Present)
LawTransform, Effects of Lawfare at University of Bergen (2025)
Empirical Implications of Theoretical Models (EITM) at Emory University (2024)
Summer Institute in Computational Social Scienc (SICSS) at Rutgers University (2022)
New York University, New York, NY
M.A. in Political Science
2019-2021

Thesis: “Networks, access and competition: immigrant social capital and US refugee integration”; a large-N analysis of co-national social capital and refugee integration across US states.
Pomona College, Claremont, CA
B.A. in Politics
2012-2016

  • Distinction in the Senior Exercise.
  • International Study: Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea; College Year in Athens, Athens, Greece.
  • NCAA DIII Basketball and Track and Field.
Publications
Timken, Alice C. 2026. “Ideology and Judicial Independence: Who Undermines High Courts in Democracies?” Democratization, March, 1–23. doi:10.1080/13510347.2026.2647276. | Materials
  • Recipient of the Best Paper Award from the Emerging Scholars Conference in Public Law (2026)
Working Papers
“The Changing Incidence of Free Speech Winners at the U.S. Supreme Court” (with Thomas M. Keck and Abigail Greenfield).
In Progress
"The Political Foundations of Independent Judicial Review Revisited"
"Constitutional Justice during Democratic Decline"

Research Experience
Research Assistant to Dr. Thomas M. Keck
Global Free Speech Repository (NSF Award 1535250), Syracuse, NY
2022-Present
Research Associate to Dr. Thomas M. Keck (previously to Dr. Elizabeth F. Cohen)
Campbell Public Affairs Institute, Syracuse, NY
2022-Present
Research Associate
Moynihan Institute, Center for European Studies, Syracuse, NY
2023-Present
Research Assistant to Abby CĂłrdova & Jessie Trudeau
Kellogg Institute, E-VAW Lab, University of Notre Dame
Fall 2024
Advocacy and Communications Associate
Asylum Access, Oakland, CA
2018-2021
Research and Writing Assistant
Center on International Cooperation (NYU), New York, NY
2020
Teaching
Law and Society; Instructor of Record (Syracuse), 2025
Contemporary Political Philosophy; Prof. Elizabeth F. Cohen (Syracuse), 2022
Introduction to American Politics; Prof. Mark Brockway (Syracuse), 2022
Constitutional Law I; Prof. Thomas M. Keck (Syracuse), 2021
Contemporary African Politics; Prof. Gwyneth McClendon (NYU), 2020
US Foreign Policy; Prof. Jeffrey Togman (NYU), 2019-2020

Invited Talks

  • "Ideology and Insurance" at I.H.S. Workshop, Purdue University, IN, USA, 2025
  • "Anti-system Parties and Judicial Independence" at Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, 2024
  • "Judicial Decision-making" at Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, PA, 2023
Grants and Awards

  • Doctoral Prize for originality and research quality, Syracuse University, 2026
  • Best Paper Award from Emerging Scholars Conference in Public Law, 2026
  • Meiklejohn Award for work committed to open and just public life, 2023
  • Kissel Award for research and teaching on civil liberties, 2023
  • Maxwell Political Science Department Travel Grant, 2021-23
  • Northeastern Political Science Assoc. Travel Grant, 2022
  • Point Foundation Semi-finalist, 2022
  • American Political Science Assoc. Travel Grant, 2021
  • American Political Science Assoc. LGBT Travel Grant, 2021
Conferences

  • Emerging Scholars Conference in Public Law (Univ. Texas at Austin), 2026
  • Bergen Exchanges on Law and Social Transformation (UiB-CMI Centre), 2025
  • Nuffield College Early Career Workshop (University of Oxford), 2025
  • Law and Society Association, 2025
  • IHS Workshop on Limited Governance and Constitutionalism, 2025
  • Northeastern Political Science Association, 2022, 2023, 2024
  • American Political Science Association, 2021, 2024
  • Empirical Implications of Theoretical Models (Emory University), 2024
  • UT-Austin Graduate Student Conference in Public Law, 2022
  • Rutgers Summer Institute in Computational Social Science, 2022
  • New York State Political Science Association, 2020-2022
  • CIPSS/CEPSI-CIPS Global Governance at McGill University, 2021
  • Refugee and Migration Studies at York University, 2021
Datasets

Skills
R, LATEX, STATA, APIs, Webscraping, Website Content Management (CMS), French (beginner) and Korean (beginner).



Last updated June 2026.
Source code from Jon Barron.