CHICAGO — Less than a week away from midterm election day, candidates are making their final pitches to voters for positions across federal and state governments. DePaul University experts are available to discuss key topics like inflation, the economy, foreign policy and immigration surrounding races for Congress and state government positions. Experts can be reached directly, or journalists can email newsroom@depaul.edu for assistance.

Alberto Coll
Vincent de Paul Professor of Law and United States Foreign Relations, Director of Global Engagement
acoll@depaul.edu
A former principal deputy assistant secretary of defense, Alberto Coll's scholarship focuses on what happens when the principles of international law and morality run into the realities of international politics and military conflict. He can discuss American foreign policy, military conflict, and international law and human rights.

Jay Cunningham
Assistant Professor of Computer Science
jcunni37@depaul.edu
Jay Cunningham can discuss how elected officials are faced with understanding and regulating AI. He leads the RAISE Lab at DePaul, advancing responsibility and fairness in AI using a human-centered research approach. His expertise covers AI policy and public-interest technology, as well as how these fields intersect with underserved communities.

Stefanie Z. Demetriades
Assistant Professor of Communications Studies
sdemetr1@depaul.edu
Stefanie Demetriades teaches courses on technology and society, misinformation and polarization. She’s available to discuss how feelings and group identities shape the way people see information and issues, including which news people seek out or avoid. A scholar on misinformation, she can discuss why people believe and share false or misleading claims, and why false claims/perceptions can be so hard to correct.

Horace R. Hall
Professor of Teacher Education, Kinesiology and Educational Studies
hhall@depaul.edu
Horace Hall teaches across the departments of Critical Ethnic Studies, African Black Diaspora and Teacher Education. His scholarship investigates four key areas: racialized geography, institutional exclusion, youth voice and activism, and policy transformation. He can also discuss voting rights for Black citizens, voting barriers, access and redistricting, weakened federal protections, reduced Department of Justice enforcement of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, and political alienation of Black voters.

Scott Hibbard
Associate Professor and Chair of Political Science
shibbar1@depaul.edu
Scott Hibbard writes and teaches about American foreign policy in the Middle East, international relations and related issues. He is also a scholar of religion and politics and can speak about the ideological differences between the two parties. In September, he discussed the 25th anniversary of Sept. 11 and wrote an op-ed in Responsible Statecraft titled “25 years after 9/11, the US still doesn’t know ‘why they hate us’.”

Valerie Johnson
Professor of Political Science and Associate Provost for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
valerie.c.johnson@depaul.edu
Co-editor of “The Right to Learn: Resisting the Right-Wing Attack on Academic Freedom,” Valerie Johnson can discuss the politics of race, political attacks on higher education, and the effect of misinformation and disinformation on the body politic. Last year, she chatted with Inside Higher Ed for an article titled “Associate Provost on the right’s coordinated attack on academic freedom.”

Thomas Mockaitis
Professor of History
tmockait@depaul.edu
Thomas Mockaitis is an expert in international security, terrorism, unconventional conflict and military history. He is available to speak about the Iran War, Gaza and Lebanon, the Houthis, Iraq withdrawal, terrorism, border security, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Ukraine, and their connection to this year's election. He routinely joins local and national media to discuss news of the day topics and often writes pieces for The Hill.

Bruce Newman
Professor of Marketing
bnewman@depaul.edu
Bruce Newman is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Political Marketing and is a leading expert on political marketing. He can discuss the role of the modern political party, marketing tactics in an era of AI, interesting tactics he’s seen in the lead-up to the 2026 midterms and what to look for over the final week before election day.

Shailja Sharma
Professor of International Studies
ssharma@depaul.edu
As co-director of the DePaul Migration Collaborative, founding director of the Refugee and Forced Migration Studies program at DePaul and a South Asia expert, Shailja Sharma can speak to asylum and refuge policies in the U.S. and Europe, how current Republican policies are impacting U.S. communities and the economy, curbs on student and highly-skilled labor, the potential impact and how the efforts put the U.S. in conflict with international law, current student protests and government crackdowns in South Asia, India’s crackdown on religious minorities, and the turn towards right wing, populist movements across the world.

Wayne Steger
Professor of Political Science
wsteger@depaul.edu
Author of “A Citizen’s Guide to Presidential Nominations: The Competition for Leadership,” Steger can speak on House, Senate and Gubernatorial elections, political parties, populism, polls, election forecasting, media coverage of campaigns, voting behavior and campaign finance.

Brian A. Thompson
Clinical Professor of Driehaus College of Business
bthomp24@depaul.edu
Brian Thompson is an expert on the national economy and financial markets. He’s available to discuss policy decisions and financial markets, economic effects on the consumer (inflation, pricing and employment), and corporate strategy decisions and impacts (retail closure/expansion, policy impacts and trends). Thompson appears regularly on NewsNation and across other local radio, television and online media outlets, weighing in on the economy and financial market news.

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