Kartemquin Films

Beth Wellman is Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Williams College, specializing in comparative politics, international relations, and contemporary Africa. She is postdoctoral research fellow at the African Centre for Migration and Society at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Previously she was a postdoctoral research associate with the Department of Politics and the Mamdouha S. Bobst Center for Peace and Justice at Princeton University. Her research examines the voting rights issue of the contemporary global era: migrant inclusion in home and host country elections. Using multi-method research designs, she studies how the current surge of international migration is reshaping electoral politics and national citizenship, particularly within the Global South. Her book project, The Diaspora Vote Dilemma, examines the conditions under which governments organize voting for citizens living abroad. Her work has been published in American Political Science Review, African Affairs, and Journal of Elections, Public Opinion, and Parties, and has been supported by numerous grants and fellowships, including the Social Science Research Council, the Institute for Social and Policy Studies, and the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University. Beth holds a A.B. from the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University, an M.A. with Honors from the Committee on International Relations at The University of Chicago, and a Ph.D. with university distinction from Yale University in May 2019. Her dissertation “Citizenship Beyond Borders: The Politics of Emigrant Enfranchisement in Africa” won the 2020 African Politics Conference Group Lynne Rienner Best Dissertation Award and the 2019 James G. March Dissertation Award for outstanding dissertation in Political Science at Yale. She is also an Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker for her work on “In the Family.”