IPDI : Institute For Politics Democracy & The Internet

F. Christopher Arterton
Dean of the Graduate School of Political Management
arterton@gwu.edu

F. Christopher Arterton is Dean of the Graduate School of Political Management, the nation's first professional school for politics. Before joining the School in 1987, Dr. Arterton was a professor at Yale University for ten years, teaching in both the Political Science Department and the School of Organization and Management. He is the Institute's principal investigator.

In his research and teaching, Dean Arterton concentrates upon the strategic environment of American political leaders including the news media, ethics legislation, communications and campaign finance laws, party and campaign organizations, teledemocracy, and polls and public opinion. He has authored numerous articles and four books: The Electronic Commonwealth: The Impact of New Media Technologies on Democratic Politics (with Jeffrey Abramson and Gary Orren; Basic Books, 1988),Teledemocracy: Can Technology Protect Democracy (Sage, 1987), Media Politics: The News Strategies of Presidential Campaigns (Lexington Books, 1984) and Explorations in Convention Decision Making (with Denis G. Sullivan and Jeffrey Pressman; W.H. Freeman, 1976).

Arterton has served as a polling consultant for numerous Democratic campaigns at the local, congressional, senatorial and gubernatorial levels. From 1979 to 1989 he served as a consultant to Newsweek magazine on polls, public opinion and political campaigning, and, from 1984 to 1987, he consulted on public opinion surveys for the Gallup Organization. Arterton has worked in many campaigns, was elected a delegate to the National Democratic Convention, and served as a member of three national commissions on party rules for the Democratic National Committee.

Julie Barko Germany
Director
julie@ipdi.org

Julie Germany serves as the director of the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet at The George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management.

Julie is the principal author and editor of several publications, including Constituent Relationship Management: The New Little Black Book of Politics, and Person-to-Person-to-Person: Harnessing the Political Power of Online Social Networks and User-Generated Content, as well as The Politics-to-Go-Handbook: A Guide to Using Mobile Technology in Politics and The Political Consultants’ Online Fundraising Primer. She co-authored Putting Online Influentials to Work for Your Campaign. She has appeared in national and international newspapers, magazines, and media, including MSNBC, C-SPAN, Fox, CBS, and NBC.

Julie previously served as the deputy director of IPDI. She worked as a writer, editor and program manager for international initiatives in Korea, Ukraine, Haiti and the United States. Julie is a founding board member of Young Champions, a non-profit that addresses youth health issues, and a co-founder of Mobile Monday DC, the local chapter of an international community of mobile technology experts and enthusiasts.

As an undergraduate, she studied Literature, Philosophy and Classics at Messiah College. Julie also studied at Keble College, Oxford University, as well as in Edinburgh, Scotland. She was a Pew Younger Scholar of Literature at the University of Notre Dame. She received an M.A. from The George Washington University, where she was a University Fellow.

Justin Beckley
Manager, IPDI Labs
justin@ipdi.org

Justin started working at The Institute for Politics, Democracy, and the Internet in September 2007. He graduated from the University of Tennessee in May 2007 with a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Political Science and is currently a first year student in the Graduate School of Political Management at The George Washington University. He plans to study campaign management and polling, but his academic interests range from economics to French. At the Institute, he hopes to work on developing a Poli-Tech lab and researching the viability of an open source electronic voting system.

Chris Brooks
Financial Manager
chris@ipdi.org

Chris Brooks serves as Financial Manager for the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet. He has been with the Institute since 2004 when he worked as Work Study Research Assistant. Chris is currently working towards a degree in Political Communication from the School of Media and Public Affairs at The George Washington University. At the young age of 15, Chris worked as the Assistant to the Director of Intergovernmental Affairs for the New Jersey Department of State where he developed his interest in government. He has since worked on several local, state and national campaigns including the Bush-Cheney '04 Presidential Campaign, serving as a GOTV wireless volunteer in Michigan.

Alex Kellner
Manager, Project Athens

Alex joined The Institute of Politics, Democracy & the Internet in September of 2007 as the Research Assistant for the eGovernment project. He is a senior at the George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs jointly pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Political Communication and a Master’s degree in Political Management. In addition to working for IPDI, Alex is also interning for Verizon’s PolicyBlog and is a member of Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity. In the past, he has also held internships with Gannett’s Corporate Communication’s Department, Rep. James McGovern, The AARP Bulletin and Microsoft, and was a student editor of the inaugural publication of Euonymous: an E-Anthology of First-Year Writing.

Sam Levenback
Chief Strategist, Politics Online Conference
sam@ipdi.org

Sam is a senior at the George Washington University majoring in Political Science. He joined the Institute for Politics, Democracy, & the Internet in June of 2007 as a Research Assistant. He has previously worked at Forward Together PAC, Issue Dynamics, Inc., and the Government Accountability Project.

Max McGowen
Institute Assistant

Max McGowen is a work study assistant at the Institute for Politics, Democracy, & the Internet and is enrolled as a freshmen in Columbian College at The George Washington University. Having participated for 4 years on his high school's debate team, Max now aspires to complete the 5-year combined degree program in political science at GW. He is particularly interested by matters relative to the role of technology in politics in society and enjoys observing the rapidly growing relationship between the two fields. Max originally hails from northeastern New Jersey.

Chris Wimbush
Manager, Telecom & Broadband Advocacy

Christopher Wimbush is a junior in the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences at the George Washington University. Chris is majoring in Political Science (Public Policy Focus) and Psychology and his academic interests focus on media, Internet, and communications Policy, the effects of media on human society and individuals, and U.S. science and technology Policy. In August of 2007, Chris joined the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet, leading a project on national broadband access. In 2006, Chris founded GW Discourse: The Political Science Quarterly, a non-partisan political issues and current events magazine focused on Domestic and International Affairs as well as Political Theory and Philosophy. He is also a regular contributor on GW Discourse’s main blogs, Domestic Intel and World Watch. Beyond serving as the Founder and President of GW Discourse, Chris was a research associate at The Franklin Partnership, a public affairs firm in Washington, concentrating on health care, educaTtion, cable franchising, and trade issues. In addition, Chris worked as a Special Correspondent for the Greenwich Time (a division of the Tribune Company) in Connecticut.

Charles Ellison

IPDI Fellow

Mr. Ellison is a widely-known and reputable public policy analyst, media and government relations expert with over a decade of experience. Based in Washington, D.C., Mr. Ellison serves as a Senior Advisor to the Center for African American Policy at the University of Denver (CAAP-DU). He is also a CAAP Senior Fellow in Public Policy and Chief Editor of the center’s popular flagship website Blackpolicy.org, providing key government relations support on major policy issues important to the Center. He is Chief Editor and Contributor to the ASCENT Journal of Public Policy at AscentPress.org and served as managing editor for the 2005 release on modern political development titled “Standing in the Gap - Leadership in the 21st Century” by ASCENT Press.

Mr. Ellison is a critically-acclaimed author, co-host of the weekly Blackpolicy.org LIVE on XM Channel 130 (POTUS ‘08) and a frequent analyst for XM Radio. He is considered a leading expert on the use of technology in modern politics; e-governance; African American political development; the intersection of media, pop-culture and politics; modern American political and public policy trends; the U.S. Congress; state, local and federal political campaign trends. His highly anticipated political thriller, TANTRUM, is scheduled for release in February 2008.

A former local news radio correspondent and 2000 recipient of the Washington, D.C. “Top 40 Under 40” Award, Mr. Ellison is a former Congressional staffer, award-winning Internet content executive and former public relations director for Mt. Nebo Records, catapulting it from small, independent status to international rotation and recognition. He is a former associate producer for C-SPAN Networks and former marketing and public relations director for Votenet Solutions, Inc. As a commentator and lecturer, he has been featured in numerous television, radio and publishing venues, including: XM Radio, BlackAmericaWeb.com, The Source, Salon.com, BET, ABC News, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, Washington Business Journal, Roll Call, National Journal, George Magazine, Pacifica Radio and National Public Radio, among others.

Mindy Finn

IPDI Fellow

Mindy Finn is well known in grassroots politics for her work in leveraging technology to promote democracy at the legislative, campaign and political committee level. Most recently, she served as the Director of “e”Strategy for the Mitt Romney for President campaign.

Finn was selected by Campaigns & Elections as a Rising Star in American politics in 2007 and was recently profiled in a cover story for the Washington Post as part of its Political Operatives series. She has appeared on Hardball, PBS’ the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, NPR, BBC Radio, among others speaking about the use of the role of new media and technology in the political process.

In her role on the Romney campaign, she directed the effort to maximize technology and the web to best communicate the candidate’s message, raise money and mobilize a strong base of support. Tactics included web video, social networking, blog outreach, user-generated content gathering, email list building and online advertising. Through her team’s efforts, the campaign was recognized for such innovative efforts as Sign Up America!, MittTV, mini-Mitt, the Create Your Own Ad contest, and the Five Brothers’ Blog.

In 2006, Finn served as Director of New Media & Technology for U.S. Senator Rick Santorum, where her job also included guiding the campaign’s use of microtargeting to contact and turn out key voters.

Her team helped Senator Santorum recruit over 50,000 active volunteers, provide outreach vehicles to more than 20 affinity groups and raise more than $1.2 million over the Internet, more than any other candidate in cycle. Finn was recognized by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review for being the Republican’s best cyber campaigner in the nation and recognized by PoliticsPA for being one of Pennsylvania’s most accomplished political operatives 26 and under.

Prior to serving Santorum, Finn served as Deputy Director of the Republican National Committee’s eCampaign and Deputy Webmaster for Bush-Cheney ’04. Both entities won the Golden Dots for their superior websites.

Finn resides in Washington, D.C. and Boston, MA and originally hails from Houston, Texas. She has a B.S. in Journalism from Boston University and is pursuing an M.S. in Political Management from George Washington University.

Judith Freeman

IPDI Fellow

Judith Freeman is the co-founder and CEO of the New Organizing Institute. Previously, she was the senior political strategist at the AFL-CIO. During the 2004 presidential election, she worked on the Kerry campaign's internet operations. She advises political and non-profit campaigns on organizing and campaign strategy and technology infrastructure. She worked for 5 years as a Network Engineer and Systems Programmer for the Network Security Center at the University of Chicago.

Alan Rosenblatt

IPDI Fellow

Alan Rosenblatt, Ph.D. is the Associate Director for Online Advocacy at CAPAF. He is a frequent speaker and author on digital media, advocacy, and politics, including social networking, blogging, grassroots, and mobile advocacy strategies. He is the founder of the Internet Advocacy Center; an adjunct professor at Georgetown and American Universities, where he teaches Media and Politics in the Digital Age, Internet Politics, and Internet Advocacy Communications; and a blogger at TechPresident.com and DrDigiPol.com. Alan is also a founding team member of Media Bureau Networks (MBN), a pioneer in streaming media services; a contributing editor to Politics Online; and serves on the editorial boards of several scholarly journals dedicated to the study of the internet, politics, and government. He taught Political Science at George Mason University for nine years. Alan Rosenblatt has a Ph.D. in Political Science from American University, an M.A. in Political Science from Boston College, and a B.A. in Political Science and Philosophy from Tufts University. He lives in Arlington, Virginia.

Lisa-Marie Von Raepke

IPDI Fellow

Lisa-Marie is a Fulbright Scholar from Germany and is currently pursuing her Master’s of Political Management at GSPM, specializing in campaign management. She graduated in August 2007 from the University of Applied Sciences Bremen, Germany, with a Bachelor’s degree in Political Management. As part of her program, she studied a semester abroad at Malmö Högskola, Sweden, as an ERASMUS scholar (sponsored by the European Union) in early 2005, and interned in 2005/06 with the Public Relations Department of the Malaysian-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Lisa-Marie was an active participant for the Young Social Democrats of the University of Applied Sciences as well as a member of the Student Council of her department during her undergraduate studies. Furthermore, she interned with the Public Relations Department of the Social Democratic Party of Hamburg, Germany, in 2003, and attended the 2nd International Summer Academy on Political Consulting a nd Strategic Campaign Communication in Mannheim, Germany, in 2006.

Lisa-Marie wrote her Bachelor’s thesis on the Americanization of German campaigns with a special focal point on how American grassroots tactics modernize German electioneering. Her work as a fellow at the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet will continue her research on German electioneering, particularly online campaigning in the upcoming state as well as federal elections.

Former Director

Former Visiting Fellows

Former Research Assistants