Sydney V. Brake

Sydney V. Brake is a third-year Ph.D. student in political science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she also works as a graduate assistant. She holds an M.A. in research psychology from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth as well as a B.A. in psychology and a B.F.A. in illustration from UMass Dartmouth. Her research lies in American Politics, Political Science Methodology, and Political Psychology.

Sydney’s work bridges psychology and political science, examining how individuals form attitudes, navigate social divides, and experience political conflict in their everyday lives. She is particularly interested in the psychological underpinnings of political polarization, how citizens perceive and evaluate the legitimacy of the branches of the U.S. government, and the dynamics of polarization in Congress. Her current projects investigate how political disagreement affects interpersonal relationships and how people interpret and respond to policy and institutional authority in highly polarized environments.

In Summer 2024, Sydney completed her master’s thesis, Underlying Sources of Political Division and Friendship Conflict in the Current Political Climate. She also participated in the ICPSR Summer Program Scholarship for Political Science Research (Summer 2025), where she expanded her methodological training in quantitative methods, causal inference, and computational tools. She is trained in R Studio, LaTeX, and SPSS in her work.

Her publications include a co-authored book chapter, “Friendship in the Time of COVID-19,” in Modern Friendships: The Evolution of Romance, Friendship and Family, and a co-authored article in The Forum (2024), “The 2024 U.S. Presidential Election: Public Opinion on the Economy and Immigration Helped Return Trump to the White House, but with No Clear Policy Mandate” (22[2–3], 343–368). https://doi.org/10.1515/for-2025-2012

Beyond her research, Sydney is committed to teaching and mentorship. She has taught and assisted in courses on psychological research methods, political polarization, legal studies, public policy, and American politics, and enjoys helping students develop the analytical and practical skills needed to engage with complex social problems. She strives to create a classroom environment that is collaborative, applied, and inclusive.

Sydney also values academic service and leadership. She served as President of UMass Dartmouth’s Psi Chi chapter, The International Honor Society in Psychology, from 2019–2023, organizing events that connected students with research opportunities and professional development resources.

Drawing from both her background in psychology and the arts, Sydney approaches political science with creativity and an interdisciplinary perspective. In her spare time, she loves to travel and make art, often blending her interests in research and design to make ideas more accessible to wider audiences.