Political Science Department Faculty
Joanna Tice Jen, Ph.D.
Political Science Professor, Coordinator
Phone: 925.424.1297
Joanna Tice Jen has taught full-time at Las Positas College since 2018. She teaches American Government, Political Theory, and Gender, Sexuality, and Politics. Joanna earned her doctorate in Political Science from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York in 2017, where her scholarship focused on American political thought, contemporary political theory, feminist and queer theory, and religio-political thought. She loves teaching at a community college where she finds her students incredibly hard working and intelligent and where she feels privileged to touch the lives of the next generation of voters, politicians, and political activists. Her students describe her as caring and passionate and say that you will leave her class a better writer.
Before coming to Las Positas, she taught American Political Thought, Contemporary Political Theory, and Research Methods at Brooklyn College in New York. Her doctoral dissertation analyzed the mutual influences of the religious and political beliefs of conservative evangelical Christians in the early 21st century. She is a co-editor and contributor to the collected volume Regimes of Happiness: Comparative and Historical Studies, from Anthem Press, and the author of “Religion in Contemporary Political Thought” in Oxford Bibliographies in Political Science.
When she’s not reading the news, trying to perfect her lectures and class assignments, or working with students on their writing, she enjoys trail running, playing with her kids, camping, travel, geeking out and debating political science on social media, baking, and coming up with unique Halloween costumes, like “the gender binary,” “Marilyn MonRoe v. Wade,” and a space shuttle with her 2-month-old baby aboard as Sally Ride, the first American woman in space.
Keith Gouveia, JD
Political Science Part Time Professor
kgouveia@laspositascollege.edu
Keith Gouveia teaches 3 sections of Political Science and/or History courses at Las Positas each semester. He has also taught joint undergraduate and graduate courses in Federal and Intergovernmental Relations and Courts and Judicial Behavior at various California State Universities. He practiced law briefly as a personal injury attorney in Washington State and then worked in Washington, DC for U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye from 1993-2000 as a legislative assistant. His areas of expertise include foreign affairs and policy, justice and the judiciary, as well as energy and water issues. He received his B.A. from the University of Alaska at Anchorage and his J.D. from Gonzaga University School of Law. His teaching concentrations are American Government, the Judiciary, and U.S. History.
Richard Hertz
Political Science Part Time Professor
Richard Hertz is an instructor in Political Science at Las Positas College. He works in the field primarily as a public opinion pollster, app developer, and data analyst. His areas of professional expertise include voter behavior and engagement as well as money and influence in politics.
His consultancy has conducted original surveys and developed election web apps for many California newspapers, television stations, public, non-profit, and private entities. Through his work with the Sacramento Bee, he is recognized as one of the state’s leading experts on California campaign finance and lobbying data.
His government experience includes stints as a California State Senate Elections and Reapportionment Committee Consultant and state regulatory agency staffer. He also spent 13 seasons in professional baseball working with Major League players and coaches on advanced video and in-game, predictive statistical analysis.
Jeremy Abrams
Political Science Part Time Professor
Jeremy Abrams first taught in the Political Science department at Las Positas College in 2017. He completed his undergraduate work at the University of Washington in Seattle, and has earned a Master's degree in Comparative Politics from the London School of Economics and a Master's degree in government from the University of Texas-Austin. He began his teaching career in Texas in 2002, offering classes in American Politics and Texas State politics to college students and to advanced high school students in the Early College Start Program in Austin. A Bay Area native, he relocated back to California in 2010 and began teaching at local colleges and universities with a desire to help students acquire the tools and knowledge to understand and participate in our political system.
Bradley Bettridge
Political Science Part Time Professor
bbettridge@laspositascollege.edu
Brad has been teaching International Relations and California Government at Las Positas and Chabot College since 2020. He attended community college at Chabot College, graduated with a bachelors degree in political science from the university of California, Berkeley, and received a masters in political science from San Francisco State University in 2018. Areas of study include identity, nationalism, polarization and local government. In his free time Brad enjoys watching sports, listening to podcasts, cooking and going on walks with his guide dog Ode.