Rate My Professor Julia Hellwege

Julia Hellwege is the Distinguished Professor and Director of the Allene R. Chiesman Center for Democracy at the University of South Dakota, where she also serves as Associate Professor of Political Science and Program and Internship Coordinator in the Department of Political Science. She earned her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of New Mexico in 2016, M.A. in Political Science from the same institution in 2011, and B.A. in Political Science from Colorado Mesa University in 2009. Hellwege's research interests encompass institutional behavior, legislative politics, gender politics, race and ethnicity in politics, Political Science pedagogy and professional development, and quantitative and mixed methods research. Her specializations include representation, particularly gender, race, and ethnicity, and institutional behavior. As Director of the Chiesman Center, housed in the Department of Political Science, she promotes civic education, engagement, and research through initiatives such as the Kids Voting program, grants to K-12 educators, collaborations with South Dakota News Watch on public polls and Engage SD community conversations, a podcast titled Dakota Dialogues with SD Public Broadcasting, and the annual Democracy Conference. Affiliated with the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program, she also serves on the Vermillion City Council and as faculty advisor for USD’s Gamma Nu chapter of Pi Sigma Alpha Honors Society.

Hellwege has received numerous awards, including the Blair and Linda Tremere Public Service Award from the College of Arts and Sciences (2025, 2020), Professor of the Year Award from Student Government Association (2024), Richard and Sharon Cutler Awards in Liberal Arts (2024), Emerging Scholar Award from the American Political Science Association-Latino Caucus (2021), Belbas-Larson Award for Excellence in Teaching (2021), Faculty of the Year Award from Political Science League (2021), Hahn-Sigelman Prize from American Politics Research (2020), and Best Paper Award Honorable Mention from APSA Women, Gender, and Politics Section (2020). Her key publications include co-editing The Palgrave Handbook of Political Research Pedagogy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021) and Strategies for Navigating Graduate School and Beyond (APSA, 2022); chapters such as Teamwork Makes the (Research) Dream Work in Aligning Teaching and Research (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023) and Campaign Donations and Surrogate Representation in Roads to Congress: 2022; and articles like Strategic Behavior in State Multimember Districts in Legislative Studies Quarterly (2021), Working Mothers Represent in American Politics Research (2019), and Gender composition and agency decision making in Policing: An International Journal (2020). She serves on the editorial board for the APSA/De Gruyter book series on Teaching Civic Engagement and Professional Development in Political Science.