Faculty

Kathleen Coll is a cultural anthropologist whose research and teaching focuses on immigration politics and policies, cultural citizenship, and grassroots community organizing in the U.S., with special emphasis on the San Francisco Bay Area. Her books include Remaking Citizenship: Latina Immigrants and New American Politics (Stanford University Press, 2010) an ethnography of Mujeres Unidas y Activas and immigrant women’s activism in San Francisco, a co-authored book Disputing Citizenship (Policy...

Sarah Burgess is a Professor in Gender and Sexualities Studies and Critical Diversity Studies. Working at the intersections of rhetorical theory, political theory, legal theory, philosophy, and gender and sexualities studies, she examines the rhetorical contours of recognition in order to understand the possibilities and limits of justice. She recently edited a special issue of Philosophy & Rhetoric that brought together authors from several disciplines to explore how practices and theories of...

Dr. Durazo teaches Latinos Politics, Social Movements, Research Methods, the department’s non-profit seminar, and policy courses on drugs, community policing and immigration enforcement. He has been featured in local and national media, providing analysis on Latino voting behavior, immigrant rights, and the impact of executive actions on immigrant communities. These outlets include KTVU, San Francisco Chronicle, Newsweek, NBC/Telemundo.

His expertise in Latino voting, immigrant rights, and...

On sabbatical for the 2026 year

Elisabeth Jay Friedman was awarded her BA by Barnard College (1988) and her MA/PhD by Stanford University (1997). She is the author of Unfinished Transitions: Women and the Gendered Development of Democracy in Venezuela, 1936-1996 (Penn State Press, 2000), the co-author of Sovereignty, Democracy, and Global Civil Society: State-Society Relations at UN World Conferences (SUNY Press, 2005) and the author of Interpreting the Internet: Feminist and Queer...

Kouslaa Kessler-Mata (yak tityu tityu Chumash and Yokut) has taught at USF since 2007. She completed her BA in American Studies, with a minor in American Indian Studies, at San Francisco State University, and her PhD in Political Science from the University of Chicago. She is a graduate of the Institute for Recruitment of Teachers program at Phillips Academy and the Coro Fellows Program in Public Affairs in San Francisco. Her book, American Indians and the Trouble with Sovereignty (Cambridge...

Keally McBride is a professor of politics at the University of San Francisco and is interested in issues of power and social change. Her recent research has focused on the dynamics of information technology within contemporary capitalism, but she has published books on punishment and policing, movements of decolonization, and colonialism and the rule of law. She teaches a broad array of courses that investigate local public policy, European politics, political economy, peace and conflict, and...

Patrick Murphy is the faculty director for the Urban and Public Affairs program. Patrick is particularly interested in public budgets and tax policy, with an eye toward fairness and sustainability. As a policy researcher, he has led a number of different applied projects for organizations such as the RAND Corporation, the University of Washington, and the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC). He also served as Research Director for PPIC as well as the Director of Resource Equity and...

Jeffrey Paller specializes in African politics and sustainable urban development. His current research examines 1) the contentious politics of African urbanization, 2) the building of sustainable neighborhoods in African cities, and 3) political change and local governance in emerging cities. His first book Democracy in Ghana: Everyday Politics in Urban Africa (Cambridge University Press) was published in 2019. He also curates the weekly news bulletin “This Week in Africa.”

Professor James Lance Taylor is from Glen Cove, Long Island. He is author of the book Black Nationalism in the United States: From Malcolm X to Barack Obama, which earned 2012 "Outstanding Academic Title" - Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries. (Ranked top 2 percent of 25,000 books submitted and top 8 percent of 7,300 actually accepted for review by the American Library Association). Rated “Best of the Best.” The hardback version sold out in the U.S. and the paperback version was...

On sabbatical for the 2026 year

Brian Weiner received his BA from Princeton University, and his MA and PhD from the University of California at Berkeley. He specializes in political theory (from the ancients to contemporary theory), American political theory, and public law. He teaches courses in the areas of political theory, law, and American politics. Professor Weiner also teaches Literature and Political Thought and Democratic Theory and Democratic Transitions. He is a member of the Honors...

Stephen Zunes has been at the University of San Francisco since 1995, teaching courses on the politics of the Middle East and other regions, nonviolence, conflict resolution, U.S. foreign policy, globalization, and the politics of war and peace. In 2004, he founded USF's Middle Eastern Studies Program and currently serves as Program Director. In 2025, he was named as USF's inaugural Daniel Greenberg Fellow in Interfaith Nonviolence.

A prominent specialist on U.S. Middle East policy, Professor...

Joaquin Jay Gonzalez III teaches international politics, Asian and Asian American social justice, migration, soft power, and public policy.

Dr. Gonzalez is the author of Filipino American Faith in Action: Immigration, Religion, and Civic Engagement (New York University Press) and co-author of Religion at the Corner of Bliss and Nirvana: Politics, Identity, Faith in New Migrant Communities (Duke University Press).

Filip Kovacevic is an adjunct professor in the Departments of Politics and Global Studies. Born in Kotor, Montenegro, Prof. Kovacevic has lectured and taught across Europe, the Balkans, the former USSR, and the U.S., including two years at Smolny College, the first liberal arts college in Russia, operating under the auspices of St. Petersburg State University. He received fellowships from the Open Society Institute, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Hoover Institution Library &...

Konrad Edward Ian Posch studies comparative political economy and regulatory politics with a particular focus on the politics of technology and regulation & governance (REGGOV). His dissertation examined the variety of ways regulators, innovators, and entrepreneurs co-create disruptive technological innovation in advanced industrial democracies. With a background in physics and mathematics, he also studies the deeper insights we can gain from qualitative and multi-method research and the...

Robert Elias has taught in USF’s politics department since 1989. Hailing from a Czech and Irish-Catholic working class family in New York City, Professor Elias created the USF Legal Studies, Criminal Justice Studies, and Peace & Justice Studies programs. He’s taught in USF's Honors Humanities and in the BA/MA in International Studies programs.

Elias has taught previously at McGill University (Montreal), Tufts University (Boston and France), the UC Berkeley, Penn State University, and the...