Academic Appointments
- Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Florida, 2024-Present
Prior Appointments
- Postdoctoral Researcher, Center for C-SPAN Scholarship and Engagement (Purdue University), 2023-2024
Education
- B.A. in Political Science, University of Nevada (Reno), 2018
- B.A. in International Affairs, University of Nevada (Reno), 2018
- Ph.D in Political Science, University of Georgia, 2023
Research Interests
Judicial Politics and Behavior, American Institutions, Constitutional Law, Criminal Justice Administration, Research Design, Research Methods (Text as Data, Natural Language Processing, and Machine Learning)
Research Skills
| Programming Languages | Statistical Software | APIs and Machine Learning |
|---|---|---|
| R (Advanced), Python (Intermediate) | Stata, SPSS, Excel, R | TensorFlow, API Proficiency, Unsupervised Learning Models (e.g, BERT, GPT-3), Supervised Learning (Bag of Words, Naive Bayes, etc.) |
Publications
- Truscott, J. S. (2024). A Social Media Platform Model of Supreme Court News. Political Research Quarterly, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/10659129241248586
- Truscott, J.S. (2023). Analyzing the Rhetoric of Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings. Journal of Law and Courts, 1-22. doi:10.1017/jlc.2023.2
- Truscott, J.S. (2022). Review of the Book A Right to Lie? Presidents, Other Liars, and the First Amendment. The Law and Politics Book Review, Vol. 33 No. 03 (March 2023) pp. 28-31.
- Truscott, J. S. (2022). The Supreme Spectacle: An Analysis of Public Attendance at the Supreme Court. Justice System Journal, 1-12.
- Explaining Congressional Support for the Federal Judiciary (Co-Author: Dr. Teena Wilhelm). The Handbook on Law and Political Systems, 2nd Edition (Forthcoming 2023).
Packages
- Truscott, Jake S. (2023). scotustext: A Comprehensive R Package for Retrieving, Cleaning, and Parsing Documents from the United States Supreme Court. Retrieved from GitHub repository: https://github.com/JakeTruscott/scotustext
Works Under Review
- How to Train Your Stochastic Parrot: Deep Language Models for Political Texts (Co-Authors: Joseph Ornstein and Elise Blasingame, Revise and Resubmit at Political Science Research and Methods)
Winner: 2022 Gosnell Prize for Excellence in Political Methodology Awarded for the best work in political methodology presented at any political science conference during the preceding year (PolMeth).
Works In Progress
- Amici as Information: Re-Examining the Influence of Amicus Curiae in an Information-Bolstering Environment. Co-Author: Bryce Dietrich (Purdue University)
- Measuring Judicial Ideology Through Text. Co-Author: Michael K. Romano (Shenandoah University).
- Do Oral Arguments Influence the Language of Majority Opinions? Co-Authors: Dr. Bryce Dietrich (Purdue University) and Dr. Maya Sen (Harvard University)
- Untitled Research Using C-SPAN Archives. Co-Author: Dr. Bryce Dietrich (Purdue University)
- A Multimodal Analysis of Emotional Arousal and Activation in Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings. Co-Author: Dr. Myriam Shiran (CCSE)
- Predictions as Inference (Working Title). Co-Authors: Dr. Benjamin Johnson (University of Florida) and Dr. Logan Strother (Purdue University)
- Ideological Congruence and Judicial Departures from the U.S. Courts of Appeals. Co-Author: Dr. Richard Vining (University of Georgia)
Media Coverage
- Joseph, J. (2024, August 1). Unpacking the Supreme Court: Why it’s not just a MAGA stronghold, and how the justices really vote. FOXNEWS . Retrieved from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/unpacking-supreme-court-why-its-not-just-maga-stronghold-how-justices-really-vote
- Biskupic, J. (2024, July 30). Exclusive: The inside story of John Roberts and Trump’s immunity win at the Supreme Court. CNN . Retrieved from https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/30/politics/supreme-court-john-roberts-trump-immunity-6-3-biskupic
- Quinn, M. (2024, July 3). 4 major takeaways from the Supreme Court’s most consequential term in years. CBS News . Retrieved from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/supreme-court-takeaways-trump-chevron-abortion/
- Wall Street Journal Editorial Board. (2024, July 2). The ‘MAGA Supreme Court’ Doesn’t Exist. The Wall Street Journal . Retrieved from https://www.wsj.com/articles/supreme-court-term-donald-trump-joe-biden-chuck-schumer-sonia-sotomayor-7ea655b3?mod=hp_opin_pos_1
- Marimow, A. (2024, July 2). As Trump dominated the docket, divided Supreme Court moved boldy to the right. The Washington Post . Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/02/supreme-court-2024-conservative-power-trump/
- Blackman, J. (2024, July 2). Which circuit had the highest reversal rate? Reason . Retrieved from https://reason.com/volokh/2024/07/02/which-circuit-had-the-highest-reversal-rate/
- Barnes, R. (2023, July 1). Supreme Court delivered big conservative wins, and a mixed message. The Washington Post . Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/07/01/supreme-court-term-conservative-wins/
- Hurley, L. (2023, July 2). ‘Unabashed’: Justice Jackson marks her first year on the Supreme Court unafraid to stake her own position. NBCNews . Retrieved from https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/unabashed-justice-jackson-marks-first-year-supreme-court-unafraid-stak-rcna87424
- Adler, J.H. (2023, July 1). Looking Back on the Supreme Court’s 2022-23 Term. reason . Retrieved from https://reason.com/volokh/2023/07/01/looking-back-on-the-supreme-courts-2022-23-term/
- Marimow, A.E. (2023, July 2). Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s bold debut and independent streak. The Washington Post . Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/07/02/ketanji-brown-jackson-first-term/
- Thomas-DeVeaux, A. & Fuong, H. (2023, July 7). The Supreme Court Had A Few Surprises This Year. That Doesn’t Make It Moderate. FiveThirtyEight . Retrieved from https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-supreme-court-had-a-few-surprises-this-year-that-doesnt-make-it-moderate/amp/
- Bravin, J. (2023, July 7). John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh Are Now the Supreme Court’s Swing Votes. The Wall Street Journal . Retrieved from https://www.wsj.com/articles/john-roberts-and-brett-kavanaugh-are-now-the-supreme-courts-swing-votes-8f90c4f6
- Schonfeld, Z. (2023, July 8). How John Roberts exhibited his power in the Supreme Court’s biggest decisions. The Hill . Retrieved from https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4085653-how-john-roberts-exhibited-his-power-in-the-supreme-courts-biggest-decisions/
- Gresko, J. (2023, July 3). The Supreme Court just issued its biggest rulings of the year. Here’s what you need to know. The Associated Press . Retrieved from https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/wireStory/supreme-court-issued-biggest-rulings-year-100567223
- Wagner, J., Douglas-Gabriel, D., Barnes, R., Berman, M., Vazquez, M., & Alfaro, M. (2023, June 30). Supreme Court’s halt on student loan relief isn’t end of Biden’s effort. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/06/30/student-loan-forgiveness-supreme-court-decision/#link-TZTU6TZRRVBH3H2OMAD2IP7SG4
- Gigot, P., Strassel, K., McGurn, B., & Peterson, K. (2023, July 3). What did we learn from the latest Supreme Court term? - opinion: Potomac Watch - WSJ Podcasts. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/opinion-potomac-watch/what-did-we-learn-from-the-latest-supreme-court-term/6377bbf1-168b-4c05-8b34-1291e3771c42
- Sherman, M. & Gresko, J. (2023, April 27). SUPREME COURT NOTEBOOK: Gender gap persists at arguments. The Associated Press. Retrieved from https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-ketanji-jackson-diversity-1e77336b8958b33ee65e6e2f4a6a9377
- Feldman, A. (2023, May 8). A New Landscape Unfolds: Supreme Court Oral Arguments in the 2022-2023 Term. Empirical SCOTUS . Retrieved from https://empiricalscotus.com/2023/05/08/a-new-landscape-unfolds-supreme-court-oral-arguments-in-the-2022-2023-term/
- Zoller, M. (2022, July 5). Listen: Jake Truscott talks Supreme Court decisions. AccessWDUN. Retrieved from https://accesswdun.com/article/2022/7/1114689/listen-jake-truscott-talks-supreme-court-decisions
- Drukman, J. (2020, October 23). UGA students more than twice as likely to favor Biden over Trump for president, according to survey data. The Red & Black. Retrieved from www.redandblack.com (Mentioned)
- Singleton, R. (2018, November 1). Too close to call: Polling conducted by UGA predicts a tight gubernatorial race. The Red & Black. Retrieved from www.redandblack.com
Other Publications
- Feldman, A. & Truscott, J. (2024, July 1). 2023 Stat Review. Empirical SCOTUS . Retrieved from https://empiricalscotus.com/2024/07/01/2023-stat-review/
- Truscott, J. (2023, August 1). The Supreme Court: Where Everyone Knows Your Name. EmpiricalSCOTUS. Retrieved from: https://empiricalscotus.com
- Truscott, J. & Feldman, A. (2022, December 30). The new hot bench: With Jackson leading the way, the justices are speaking more during oral arguments. SCOTUSblog. Retrieved from www.scotusblog.com
- Truscott, J. & Feldman, A. (2022, July 28). Lengthier opinions and shrinking cohesion: Indications for the future of the Supreme Court. SCOTUSblog. Retrieved from www.scotusblog.com
- Truscott, J. (2019, July 24). GUEST COLUMN: 7 things to expect from the next Democratic primary debate. The Red & Black. Retrieved from www.redandblack.com
- Truscott, J. (2019, January 8). GUEST COLUMN: Hosting a 2020 presidential debate could offer an incredible opportunity for UGA. The Red & Black. Retrieved from www.redandblack.co
Talks
- “I Will Keep This Brief: Media Framing and Responses to Supreme Court News on Social Media Platforms.” Guest Lecture. University of Texas, El Paso (Virtual). Course on Public Opinion, Media, and Technology (Instructor: Dr. Melissa Baker).
Teaching
University of Georgia
- POLS 1101: Introduction to American Government (Spring 2021)
- POLS 3600: Criminal Justice Administration (Fall 2021, 2022)
Conference Participation
- “The Utility of Lagged Independent Variables for Causal Inference.” Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Southern Political Science Association, St. Pete Beach, Florida, January 2023.
- “Public Perceptions of the Supreme Court’s Shadow Docket on Social Media.” Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Southern Political Science Association, St. Pete Beach, Florida, January 2023.
- “I Will Keep This Brief: Media Framing and Responses to Supreme Court News on Social Media Platforms.” Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, September 2022.
- “How To Train Your Stochastic Parrot: Deep Language Models for Political Texts” (Coauthors: Dr. Joseph Ornstein and Elise Blasingame). Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, September 2022.
- “Ideological Congruence and Judicial Departure in the U.S. Circuit Courts” (Coauthor: Richard L. Vining). Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, Illinois, April 2022.
- “Applying Sentiment Analysis to Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings.” Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Southern Political Science Association, San Antonio, Texas, January 2022.
Chair, “Transitioning from Graduate School to Academia.” At the Annual Meeting of the Southern Political Science Association, San Antonio, Texas, January 2022. - “Ideological Congruence and Strategic Departure in the Federal District Courts.” Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, Illinois, April 2021.
- “The Supreme Spectacle: Media, Law, and Public Participation at the Supreme Court.” Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Southern Political Science Association, Virtual, January 2021.
- “Ideological Congruence and Strategic Departure in the Federal District Courts.” Presented at the Atlanta Symposium on Political Science, Atlanta, Georgia, March 2022.
Awards & Grants
- Society for Political Methodology (PolMeth) Gosnell Prize (2022)
- UGA Graduate Teaching Award (2022-2023)
- Sidney M. Robinson Memorial Scholarship (2017)
- Peter Mekis Memorial Scholarship (2018-2023)
- 2022 Summer Research Grant, University of Georgia Graduate School (2022)
References
- Dr. Richard Vining (Dissertation Advisor)
rvining@uga.edu
Associate Professor of Political Science
University of Georgia - Dr. Bryce Dietrich
bjdietri@purdue.edu
Associate Professor of Political Science
Purdue University - Dr. Teena Wilhlem
twilhelm@uga.edu
Associate Professor of Political Science
Director of Graduate Studies
University of Georgia - Dr. Joseph Ornstein
jornstein@uga.edu
Assistant Professor of Political Science
University of Georgia