Published Work
de Kadt, Daniel, Ada Johnson-Kanu, and Melissa Sands. 2024. "State Violence, Party Formation, and Electoral Accountability: The Political Legacy of the Marikana Massacre." American Political Science Review, 118(2), 563-583. Publisher's version.
Dietrich, Bryce, and Melissa Sands. 2023. “Seeing Racial Avoidance on New York City Streets.” Nature: Human Behaviour, 7, 1275-1281. Publisher's version.
Nathan, Noah, and Melissa Sands. 2023. “Context and Contact: Unifying the Study of Environmental Effects on Politics”. American Review of Political Science, 26. Publisher's version.
Wilson, Nicole, Michael Hankinson, Asya Magazinnik, and Melissa Sands. 2024. “Inaccuracies in Low Income Housing Geocodes: When and Why They Matter.” Urban Affairs Review, 60 (10), 217-231. Publisher's version.
de Kadt, Daniel, and Melissa Sands. 2021. "Segregation Drives Racial Voting: New Evidence from South Africa.” Political Behavior. Publisher's version.
Sands, Melissa, and Daniel de Kadt. 2020. “Local Exposure to Inequality Raises Support of People of Low Wealth for Taxing the Wealthy.” Nature 586: 257–261. Publisher's version.
⋅ Nature News and Views Commentary by Tredoux and Dixon.
Enos, Ryan, Aaron Kaufman, and Melissa Sands. 2019. “Can Violent Protest Change Local Policy Support? Evidence from the Aftermath of the 1992 Los Angeles Riot.” American Political Science Review 113 (4): 1012-1028. Publisher's version.
Sands, Melissa. 2017. “Exposure to Inequality Affects Support for Redistribution.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 114 (4): 663-668. Publisher's version.
* Winner of 2017 Best Paper, Public Policy Section of APSA.
* Winner of 2017 Best Paper Award, Political Psychology Section of APSA.
O’Brien, Daniel Tumminelli, Dietmar Offenhuber, Jesse Baldwin-Philippi, Melissa Sands, and Eric Gordon. 2016. “Uncharted Territoriality in Coproduction: The Motivations for 311 reporting.” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 27 (2): 320-335. Publisher's version.
* Honorable Mention, 2018 Radin Award for Best Paper published in JPART.
Working Papers
Hankinson, Michael, Asya Magazinnik, and Melissa Sands. “The Policy Adjacent: How Affordable Housing Generates Policy Feedback Among Neighboring Residents.” Revise & resubmit (second round). Working draft.
* Winner of 2023 Best Paper Award, American Political Economy Section at APSA
Sands, Melissa, Reagan Bijou, and Adam Thal. "The Political Consequences of Exposure to Inequality on Social Media: A Field Experiment." Under review.
Sands, Melissa. "'Eyes' on the Street: What Public Camera Feed Data Can Teach Us About Civic and Political Behavior.” Working draft.
Sands, Melissa. “The Distributive Politics of Education Policy: Party Control of State Government and Transfers to Localities.” Working draft.
King, Gary, and Melissa Sands. “How Human Subject Research Rules Mislead You and Your University, and What to Do About it.” Working draft.
Other Ongoing Projects
Bollen, Paige, Joe Higton, and Melissa Sands. "Eye, Robot: A Generative AI Approach to Measuring Subjective Assessments from Street View Images at Scale."
Green-Riley, Naima, and Melissa Sands. "Cultural Exchange or Cultural Clash? Exposure to Chinese Students and Attitudes Towards China."
Dietrich, Bryce, and Melissa Sands. "Measuring Racial Avoidance on Virtual Streets."
Barari, Soubhik, Jacob Brown, Bryce Dietrich, Ryan Enos, and Melissa Sands. "Using Public Camera Feeds to Study Social Distancing and Pro-Health Behaviors in a Pandemic."
Sands, Melissa, and Kris-Stella Trump. "How Does Exposure to Local Inequality Shape Political Participation?"
de Benedictis-Kessner, Justin, Ryan Enos, Michael Hankinson, and Melissa Sands. "Neighborhood Stability and Civic Participation.”
Hankinson, Michael, Melissa Sands, and Yamil Velez. "The Effects of Residential Stability on Civic Attitudes Via Housing Lottery."
de Benedictis-Kessner, Justin, and Melissa Sands. "Field Experimental Evidence on Smart City Technology and Voter Registration."
Sands, Melissa, and Daniel de Kadt.
“Exposure to Inequality as an Explanation of the Robin Hood Paradox.”