Larissa Henkst

Year: 2026

Center: Social Sciences

She is a doctoral candidate in Political Science at the Graduate School of Economic and Social Sciences. She earned her Bachelor's degree in Political Science and Cultural Anthropology primarily at the University of Göttingen, Germany, and spent two semesters abroad at Amherst College in the United States. She holds a Master's degree in Empirical Democracy Research from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany. 

During her studies, she worked as a research assistant in the Department of Comparative Politics at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and in the International Office of the University of Göttingen, as well as within its university network ENLIGHT. 

Her master's thesis examined the correlation between the political heterogeneity of everyday political discourse and individual polarization. She is currently a research associate at the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES), where she contributes to the DFG-funded project Group Appeals in Electoral and Parliamentary Debates, led by Dr. Lena Maria Huber. In her dissertation, she investigates appeals to social class and their effects on perceptions of political representation.