Rate My Professor Elizabeth Simas

Elizabeth Simas is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Houston. She earned a B.S. from Santa Clara University and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Davis in 2011. Joining the University of Houston in fall 2011, she advanced to Associate Professor and was tenured in 2018. Her research centers on American political behavior, with particular emphasis on U.S. elections and voting. Simas utilizes survey and experimental data to examine the behavior of candidates and voters, including the causes and consequences of candidate position-taking, the role of individual issue preferences, and how non-policy factors such as empathy, risk orientations, and ideology shape voter decisions and behaviors. Her work explores topics like political polarization, candidate valence, ambiguous rhetoric, and the electoral implications of the Supreme Court.

Simas authored the monograph In Defense of Ideology: Reexamining the Role of Ideology in the American Electorate (Cambridge University Press, 2023). She has published over two dozen articles in top-tier journals, including the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, and Journal of Politics. Key publications include "How Empathic Concern Fuels Political Polarization" (APSR, 2020), "Candidate Valence and Ideological Positions in US House Elections" (AJPS, 2010), "Risk Orientations and Policy Frames" (JOP, 2010), "The Supreme Court as an Electoral Issue: Evidence from Three Studies" (Political Science Research and Methods, 2022), and "Nothing to Hide, Nowhere to Run, or Nothing to Lose: Candidate Position-Taking in Congressional Elections" (Political Behavior, 2014). Simas received the University of Houston Teaching Excellence Provost Core Award in 2017 and the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences Ross M. Lence Teaching Excellence Award in 2022, along with an FY24 Award for Excellence. She serves as associate editor of the Journal of Experimental Political Science and on the editorial boards of Political Behavior and Electoral Studies. Simas regularly contributes commentary to Houston Public Media’s Houston Matters and co-authored pieces for the Washington Post's Monkey Cage blog, enhancing public understanding of electoral politics.