Alex Tolkin

Alex Tolkin is a dual-PhD candidate in the political science department and Annenberg school for communication, with a focuses on media and public opinion. His dissertation, "Seeing Politics as a Sport: Potrayal of Competition in Sports and its Effect on Political Attitudes" examines how watching sports influences political attitudes and beliefs. In a series of papers he studies how aspects of the common portrayal of competition in sports, such as losers peacefully accepting defeats or the zero-sum nature of group interaction influence political attitudes. Prior to UPenn, Alex worked as a data scientist at Locus Analytics. He graduated with a B.A. in Political Science summa cum laude from Washington University in Saint Louis.