Kassandra M. Birchler received her Ph.D in political science in 2018 from Yale University (MA: ETH Zurich, BA: University of Zurich) and was a visiting scholar at the Affective NeuroEconomics Lab at the University of Amsterdam. In her dissertation she explored the effect of negative emotions (i.e. anger, anxiety, and stress) on political preferences by combining methodological approaches from political science, economics, and clinical psychology. She is also interested in the impact of early childhood trauma on political ideology. Kassandra received a number of awards, scholarships, and fellowships (including the Fulbright Foreign Student Scholarship) and published in International Studies Quarterly (ISQ) and the Lancet Psychiatry.