Kirsten O. Lydic

In her research, Kirsten Lydic uses interdisciplinary and community-engaged methods to understand and promote civic and political engagement.

Kirsten Lydic is a doctoral candidate at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. Her work integrates psychology, political and social theory, and mixed-methods research to study how democratic participation is cultivated, experienced, and sustained. She is particularly interested in deliberative democracy, collective action, democratic innovations, and in how participatory processes—as microcosms of democracy—can foster radical imagination about forms of relationality. 

Lydic’s research asks how civic engagement is shaped not only by institutions and policies, but also by civic beliefs and affective experiences. Using participatory action research and other community-engaged approaches, she examines how practices such as deliberation, collaborative problem-solving, and playful engagement can enrich political imagination to support engagement in policy and institutional reform. Across her work, Lydic is motivated by questions about how democratic systems can better reflect peoples' lived experiences, needs, and values while enabling meaningful participation. 

Before joining the Annenberg School for Communication, Lydic worked for four years as a researcher and lab technician in the Brain and Cognitive Sciences department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from Hampshire College.