New Faculty Fellowship Honors a Legacy of Service and Civic Engagement

By Jessica Youngman

August 31, 2026

Emily Thorson

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Maxwell political scientist Emily Thorson has been named the inaugural Fortunato Priore Endowed Faculty Fellow in Civic Engagement, an appointment made possible by an alumnus’ estate gift.

Emily Thorson

Emily Thorson has spent much of her career studying the distance between what government policies actually do and what Americans believe they do. That stubborn gap sits at the center of The Invented State: Policy Misperceptions in the American Public, one of two books the Maxwell School political scientist published in 2024. The other, How News Coverage of Misinformation Shapes Perceptions and Trust, examines how the media environment shapes what people believe—and how much they trust it.

That scholarship, paired with Thorson’s work in the classroom, has earned her a new distinction. She has been named the inaugural Fortunato Priore Endowed Faculty Fellow in Civic Engagement, a three-year appointment that took effect July 1. Established through the estate gift of Maxwell School and College of Arts and Sciences alumnus Col. Fortunato “Fred” R. Priore ’55 B.A. (Soc) with additional support from the University, the fellowship recognizes a faculty member whose work advances civic and public engagement.

“Fred Priore believed that a strong democracy depends on citizens who understand not just their own communities, but the policies and institutions that shape all our lives,” said David M. Van Slyke, dean of the Maxwell School. “Professor Thorson’s research and teaching speaks directly to that belief. We are deeply grateful to his family for helping us carry it forward through her work.”

Thorson is an associate professor of political science and senior research associate at the Maxwell School’s Campbell Public Affairs Institute. Her research on misinformation and political psychology has appeared in Nature and the American Political Science Review, among other journals, and recent accolades include Maxwell’s Daniel Patrick Moynihan Award for Teaching and Research in 2024.

The fellowship carries forward the legacy of a Syracuse graduate whose life traced an unlikely path from a first-generation immigrant household to some of the highest levels of the U.S. Army.

Fred Priore believed that a strong democracy depends on citizens who understand not just their own communities, but the policies and institutions that shape all our lives. Professor Thorson’s research and teaching speaks directly to that belief. We are deeply grateful to his family for helping us carry it forward through her work.”

David M. Van Slyke

dean of the Maxwell School

Priore was born in Utica in 1933 to parents who had emigrated from Italy. He attended Manlius Military Academy before enrolling at Syracuse, where he was commissioned as an ROTC Distinguished Military Graduate. Over a 28-year Army career, his work centered on personnel and leadership: he served as adjutant general of the 82nd Airborne Division, held postings in Korea, Germany and Vietnam, and spent time on both the Army Staff and the Department of Defense's Joint Staff at the Pentagon. He retired in 1983 as deputy chief of staff for personnel at the Presidio in San Francisco.

A person in a military helmet with chin strap, serious expression. — Col. Fortunato “Fred” R. Priore ’55 B.A. (Soc)

“It really is the issue of civic engagement that was an important guidepostr in Fred’s view of the world,” said his nephew, Winthrop Thurlow, executive director of LifeSciencesNY and executor of Priore’s estate. Thurlow recalled visiting his uncle at the Pentagon as a teenager and being struck by a room lined with maps of the world. The decisions made there, Thurlow recalled Priore telling him, “really affected not only people in this country, but people around the world. That’s why it was important to understand, and to be engaged in, the hard work of democracy.”

Priore died in 2004. His wife, Renee, also a career Army officer, later established a scholarship in his name to support Maxwell School graduate students with financial need. When she died in 2022, her own estate gift extended that commitment.

“Fred and Renee were both very important to me,” Thurlow said, noting that his uncle often talked about the education he received at Maxwell and how it greatly impacted his military career, especially related to his high-ranking personnel oversight. “It is heartening to know that I've been able to help ensure that their wishes were carried out. I also share Fred’s real passion for civic engagement, so it’s a treat for me that it worked out this way.”

Thurlow is pleased with Thorson’s appointment and feels his late uncle and aunt would have felt the same.

“I was struck, in my conversations with her, by how much of her work focuses on the disconnect between policy and most Americans’ understanding of how government actually functions,” Thurlow said. “That’s the intersection I think Fred found most compelling and most important for people to understand.”

For Thorson, the appointment is a vote of confidence in work aimed at helping Americans better understand, and engage with, the policies made in their name—a mission Priore spent a lifetime championing in his own way.