Parrish Bergquist

I am an Assistant Professor at at the University of Pennsylvania's Political Science Department. I study the political determinants of environmental policy—in the US and abroad—with a particular focus on public will and political behavior. The three major strands of my research focus on explaining the development of attitudes and policy views about climate change and the environment, examining how public environmental concern is activated in the political system, and explaining the drivers and consequences of state-level climate policies in the polarized US political context. Throughout my work, I focus on environmental politics to develop and test theories on polarization, public opinion, persuasion, and mobilization. In turn, I apply these lines of theory to one of the most important contemporary policy challenges. My research has been published in scholarly outlets including the Journal of Politics, British Journal of Political Science, Nature Climate Change, Nature Energy, and Environmental Research Letters. I teach classes in environmental politics, public policy, and statistical methods. In my teaching I aim to help students apply theories and insights from political science, sociology, and economics to a wide range of public policy topics. I received my PhD from MIT in political science and urban studies & planning in 2019.