Kevin Hunter’s curiosity about American political behavior led him to UT courses in not only political science but history, sociology, psychology, and Africana studies.
Growing up in a military family that moved every few years, Kevin Hunter observed the world around him and became curious about what shapes people’s political behavior. As an undergraduate at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, he discovered a passion for conducting research to find answers.
Graduating in spring 2026 as an honors political science major, with a minor in social justice, Hunter is continuing his education to earn a doctorate in political science.
An African American politics course with Professor Shayla C. Nunnally was a defining moment in Hunter’s undergraduate college experience.
“I not only discovered my love for Black political behavior, but also Dr. Nunnally suggested I apply to one of the most life-changing experiences I have ever participated in, the Ralph Bunche Summer Institute,” he said. “Writing a quantitative research paper in less than five weeks was extremely rigorous, however, I thoroughly enjoyed every part of the independent research process.”
The experience gave him a passion for further research and the confidence that he can succeed in academia.
Courses Reveal Interests
As a middle school student, Hunter saw the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement in the wake of the killing of Trayvon Martin and began considering a career in law.
He enrolled in UT as a political science major with that in mind, but discovered through sociology and history courses in the College of Arts and Sciences that he was more interested in the forces behind court cases than the case law.
Adding a social justice minor allowed him to tie his interests together through courses in the Departments of Sociology, Africana Studies, and Psychology and Neuroscience.
Introduction to Africana Studies with Teaching Assistant Professor Walter Isaac was one of the first classes Hunter ever took that focused on Black history, showing the relevance of long-ago events such as the transatlantic slave trade to issues today. “He’s a great teacher, and it really helped me to realize my interest,” Hunter said.
Then, through the Departments of Political Science and Africana Studies he took Nunnally’s cross-listed course and explored Black political ideologies. Although Hunter was initially shy during class discussions, the professor said, his writing stood out.
“It indicated how well he understood our class material and how well he could form his own questions about American political behavior, in general, and African American political behavior, in particular,” Nunnally said. “Kevin was curious about how people think about political candidates and how political candidates appeal to voters. He had really interesting, sophisticated, and researchable inquiries about public opinion and political behavior, and these inquiries could stand with ones that our field is, currently, grappling to understand.”
Summer Undergraduate Research
Nunnally’s encouragement to apply and belief that he could succeed at the prestigious Ralph Bunche Summer Institute was just part of the mentorship and support Hunter received from faculty mentors in UT’s Department of Political Science. “Their help and encouragement have been paramount to my successes thus far,” he said.
The experience in summer 2025 solidified for Hunter the idea that he wanted to stay in academia and conduct research. “I learned how to do my first quantitative research paper in a couple of weeks,” he said, noting that included learning how to code.
Hunter explored whether the congressional districts in which Black conservatives lived shaped their votes, examining how identities interact across different social and political contexts. He was selected to present his research at the American Political Science Association (APSA) annual meeting. “At APSA, I fell in love with the discipline further and sharpened my presentation skills by engaging with leading scholars and my peers,” he said.
Hunter also presented his research at the Eldersveld Emerging Scholars Conference at the University of Michigan, where he will be attending graduate school.
For his honors senior thesis at UT, guided by Professor Anthony Nownes as his advisor and Nunnally as a reviewer, Hunter examines the 2024 election and why groups of Black voters shifted toward the Republican Party. “I’m looking at younger Black males, Black conservatives, and Black people with lower levels of linked fate and group consciousness,” he explained.
A Volunteer of Distinction
When he arrived on Rocky Top, Hunter was not only a first-generation college student but said he felt a culture shock as a Black student on a campus with less diversity than the schools he previously had attended. The UT Success Academy helped ease him through the transition. “(Director) Aaron Dixon really made me feel like I belonged here,” said Hunter, who developed a sense of community at the university.
His academic achievement earned Hunter the honor of graduating as a 2026 Volunteer of Distinction. He’s also a member of the Phi Beta Kappa academic honor society and Pi Sigma Alpha, the national political science honor society. “It’s been a lot of hard work keeping a 4.0,” he said. “Making my family proud and showing my little cousins they could do this too was a big motivator for me.”
APSA named Hunter a 2026-2027 Diversity Fellowship Program (DFP) Fellow, part of a long-term effort to increase the number of under-represented scholars in the political science field. The program supports students who are applying to, or in the early stages of, a PhD program in political science.
by Amy Beth Miller