Jennifer Lawless

Jennifer L. Lawless received her Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University in 2003 and he B.A. in political science from Union College in 1997. She is currently an assistant professor of political science at Brown University, with a courtesy appointment at the Taubman Center for Public Policy. Her teaching and research focus on gender politics, electoral politics, and public opinion. She has published numerous articles in academic journals, such as The American Journal of Political Science, Political Research Quarterly, Legislative Studies Quarterly, The Journal of Politics, and Women and Politics . She is also the lead author of It Takes A Candidate: Why Women Don't Run for Office (Cambridge University Press, 2005) and a public policy report used by EMILY's List, Emerge, and the Women's Campaign School at Yale to help promote and recruit women candidates.

Dr. Lawless has become a recognized speaker on the subject of electoral politics, frequently discussing these issues on national and local television and radio outlets. Her scholarly analysis and political commentary have been quoted in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The New Republic, the Chronicle of Higher Education, the Boston Globe, the Pittsburgh-Gazette, the Seattle Times, the Hartford Courant, the Associated Press Newswire, Reuters, cnn.com, msnbc.com, foxnews.com, and the Providence Journal.

In 2006, she sought the Democratic nomination for the U.S. House of Representatives in Rhode Island 's second congressional district. Although she lost the race, she is very active in Rhode Island politics, serving on the boards of Planned Parenthood of Rhode Island and the Women's Fund of Rhode Island.