The American Political Science Association (APSA) works towards the promotion of scholarly research and the expansion of opportunities for its members. The Fund for Latino Scholarship is an APSA initiative that pursues these goals. The fund awards grants in a variety of cases, including supporting activities that help to grow the wealth of academic knowledge surrounding Latino politics as well as providing travel assistance to young scholars. The APSA believes that Latino and Latina scholars that receive grants gain the most by using them to travel to the organization’s annual meeting.

UMass political science graduate student Ivelisse Cuevas-Molina was recently named a 2016-2017 Latino Scholarship Fund Recipient. She will use the award to fund a trip to the 2016 APSA Annual Meeting in Philadelphia. At the meeting, Ivelisse will present her paper “Liar Liar: Response Latencies and Voter Turnout Overreports” during a panel titled “Latino/a Scholars Transforming Political Science.” This paper is only one part of her dissertation that examines the overreporting of voter turnout in surveys and this phenomenon’s relationship to the social desirability hypothesis, which is the theory that survey respondents tend to report answers that they believe will be viewed favorably.

Ivelisse Cuevas-Molina is a PhD candidate with an academic interest in American politics, survey methodology, and political psychology. She holds a Bachelors degree from the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras, and a Masters degree from the Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University. Congratulations to Ivelisse for receiving this APSA award!