Professor Treul Roberts is the faculty director of the Program for Public Discourse and a Bowman and Gordon Gray Term Professor of political science at UNC. She specializes in American political institutions, with an emphasis on the U.S. Congress. She earned her B.A. in Political Science and Psychology from Wellesley College and her M.A and Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota.

Sarah’s current work examines the role of previous political experience and anti-establishment rhetoric on the success of congressional candidates and vote choice in the electorate. Other ongoing projects analyze the role of experience and ideology on legislative effectiveness in Congress, how extreme ideological primary challenges influence congressional behavior and the effect of public opinion on congressional outcomes.

Sarah is the recipient of UNC’s Tanner Award for Teaching Excellence, the Chapman Family Teaching Award, Honors Carolina’s Manekin Award for Teaching Excellence, and the department of political science’s Robson Award for Excellence in Graduate Instruction.

Kevin Marinelli (Ph.D., University of Georgia) serves as Executive Director of the Program for Public Discourse and teaches in the Department of Communication. He teaches courses in rhetorical studies, and his scholarship centers on public argument. He has published essays in Rhetoric Society Quarterly and Argumentation and Advocacy, including his most recent essay on the emergence of Black Lives Matter. Kevin also leads the Agora Fellows, a group of undergraduate students committed to the study and practice of public discourse in contemporary democracy. Currently, Kevin is investigating practices of rhetorical citizenship.

Nora Hanagan is a teaching assistant professor of political science. She teaches courses on American political thought, contemporary democratic theory, and environmental political thought. Prior to joining UNC, she served as Managing Director of the Duke Program in American Values and Institutions and taught at both Duke and the University of Wisconsin.

In her research, Professor Hanagan investigates the ethical obligations that accompany democratic citizenship while considering how citizens might fulfill these obligations in societies that are imperfectly democratic. Much of her work puts historical American thinkers—such as Jane Addams and Martin Luther King Jr.—in dialogue with contemporary democratic theorists.

Alissa Bouttavong is a Special Programs Assistant for the UNC Program for Public Discourse. She graduated from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte with a Bachelor’s degree in Communication Studies, Organizational Concentration, and a minor in Criminal Justice.