We are scholars, teachers and leaders in the gender and politics community. Together we have amassed strong research records, with publications in the discipline’s leading journals, and have published six monographs and multiple edited volumes. Our research profiles span comparative politics, political development, American politics, and international relations. Between us, we have decades of experience teaching gender and politics at the undergraduate and graduate level.
Members of our board have held leadership roles in the discipline’s major gender and politics related organizations, including serving as presidents of the Midwest Women’s Caucus, APSA’s Committee on the Status of Women in the Profession, and on the executive board of the APSA Gender and Politics Research Section, and the advisory boards of the American Bar Association’s Rule of Law Initiative and Women and Girls Empowered Consortium. Several of our team members are lead or associate editors at two flagship book series – the Cambridge Elements Series in Gender and Politics, and Cambridge Studies in Gender and Politics.
We also have significant experience evaluating gender and politics research, as editors at British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, Legislative Studies Quarterly, as well as through our roles as associate editors at Politics & Gender, Research & Politics, and International Security Studies Forum.
Directors
Tiffany D. Barnes is Professor of Political Science at University of Texas (as of July 1, 2024). Her research is in the field of Comparative Politics with an emphasis on Latin America, gender and politics, and comparative political institutions. She employs both quantitative and qualitative research approaches to examine how institutions shape the political behavior of citizens and elites. She is author of two Cambridge University Press monographs and the leading undergraduate textbook for gender and politics across the globe, “Women, Politics, and Power.” Her first monograph, Gendering Legislative Behavior (Cambridge University Press 2016), won the Alan Rosenthal Prize from the Legislative Studies Section of the American Political Science Association in 2017. Her other peer-reviewed work appears in the Cambridge Elements in Campaigns and Elections series and journals such as the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, Comparative Political Studies, and Politics & Gender. In 2018 she was awarded the Emerging Scholar Award from the Legislative Studies Section of the American Political Science Association and in 2017 she was honored with the Early Career Award from the Midwest Women’s Caucus for Political Science. Her research is supported by the National Science Foundation. She is co-editor at British Journal of Political Science, the Cambridge Elements in Gender and Politics Series, past president of the Midwest Women’s Caucus, and a founding director of the EGEN network.
Dawn Langan Teele is SNF Agora Associate Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. She is a 2025-2027 fellow with the Andrew Carnegie Foundation. Since 2023 she is the editor of Comparative Political Studies, a leading journal in comparative politics. Teele’s research examines the causes and consequences of voting rights reform; candidate socialization, recruitment, and election; bias against women in politics; and political ambition. Her 2018 book, Forging the Franchise: The Political Origins of the Women's Vote was awarded the Gregory Luebbert Award for the best book in comparative politics from the American Political Science Association. In 2023 she won APSA’s Theda Skocpol Emerging Scholar Prize.
Dawn Langan Teele is SNF Agora Associate Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. She is a 2025-2027 fellow with the Andrew Carnegie Foundation. Since 2023 she is the editor of Comparative Political Studies, a leading journal in comparative politics. Teele’s research examines the causes and consequences of voting rights reform; candidate socialization, recruitment, and election; bias against women in politics; and political ambition. Her 2018 book, Forging the Franchise: The Political Origins of the Women's Vote was awarded the Gregory Luebbert Award for the best book in comparative politics from the American Political Science Association. In 2023 she won APSA’s Theda Skocpol Emerging Scholar Prize.
Executive Board
Rachel E. Brulé is Associate Professor of Global Development Policy in the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. Her work identifies the conditions under which political, economic, and social systems rebalance gendered power. She is a political scientist who bridges development economics and feminist theory, combining careful causal identification with innovative theory building and extensive field research in South Asia. Her 2020 book Women, Power, & Property: The Paradox of Gender Equality Laws in India (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Series in Gender & Politics) was awarded the Gregory Luebbert Award for the best book in comparative politics from the American Political Science Association. She is also a recipient of the Midwest Political Science Association’s Pi Sigma Alpha Award for the Best Paper Overall, and the Kellogg/Notre Dame Award for the Best Paper in Comparative Politics. She has been selected to receive an NSF CAREER Award, and is a Marshall Scholar and a Truman Scholar (2002, NY). She will be a Center for the Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences Fellow at Stanford University for the 2024-25 Academic Year. She is Co-Founder of the BU-State Department Alliance for Afghan Women’s Economic Empowerment, serves as Associate Director of the Human Capital Initiative at the BU Global Development Policy Center, is an Editorial Board Member at Politics & Gender; Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society; and Indian Politics & Policy, and is on the Board of Trustees for the American Institute of Bangladesh Studies. Her articles have been published in the leading Political Science, Economics, and Gender journals, including the Journal of Politics, the Annual Review of Political Science, the Journal of Development Economics, and Gender & Politics, among others.
Diana Z. O’Brien is the Bela Kornitzer Distinguished Professor in the Department of Political Science at Washington University in St. Louis. Her work focuses on the causes and consequences of women's political representation in high-income democracies — including in Europe and the United States — and across the globe. O’Brien has published numerous articles on these questions in top political science journals, including the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, and the Journal of Politics. She is the winner of a Fulbright Fellowship, National Science Foundation Support, and several paper awards including the American Political Science Association's Lawrence Longley Award, the Southern Political Science Association's Best Overall Paper Award and Marian Irish Award for best women and politics paper, the Midwest Political Science Association's Sophonisba Breckinridge Award for the best paper on the topic of women and politics, the Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties best article award, and the GESIS Klingemann Prize. She is the founding editor of the Cambridge University Press Elements in Gender and Politics Series and a founding member of the EGEN network. She has served as an associate editor at Politics & Gender, president of the Midwest Women’s Caucus, and executive board member of the APSA Women, Gender, and Politics Research Section.
Soledad Artiz Prillaman is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Stanford University. Her work focuses on understanding how and when women gain access to politics, both as citizens and representatives, in South Asia. Her work combines rigorous quantitative methodologies – experimental methods, causal inference, network analysis, and survey research – with in-depth qualitative fieldwork and theoretical development to identify empirical relationships as well as underlying causal mechanisms. Her first monograph, The Patriarchal Political Order: the making and unraveling of the gendered participation gap in India, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2023 as part of the Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics. She additionally has articles published in top political science journals, including the American Journal of Political Science and the Journal of Politics. Her research has received several awards, including the Juan Linz Award for the best dissertation in the comparative study of democracy. She is on the editorial board of Political Behavior.
Jakana Thomas is Associate Professor in the School of Global Policy and Strategy and the Department of Political Science at University of California San Diego. She serves as Research Advisor for the RESOLVE Network at the United States Institutes of Peace and associate editor at the Robert Jervis/H-DIPLO International Security Studies Forum. Her research focuses on political violence and conflict processes with an emphasis on understanding women’s participation in and experiences with contentious politics. She is co-lead on a Blue Shield Foundation funded project examining Californians’ experiences with violence across their lifespans (CalVEX). This project has produced a number of policy briefs and reports focusing on the implications of intimate partner violence in the United States. Her work has been published at the leading Political Science and International Relations journals, including the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics and International Organization, among other outlets.
Diana Z. O’Brien is the Bela Kornitzer Distinguished Professor in the Department of Political Science at Washington University in St. Louis. Her work focuses on the causes and consequences of women's political representation in high-income democracies — including in Europe and the United States — and across the globe. O’Brien has published numerous articles on these questions in top political science journals, including the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, and the Journal of Politics. She is the winner of a Fulbright Fellowship, National Science Foundation Support, and several paper awards including the American Political Science Association's Lawrence Longley Award, the Southern Political Science Association's Best Overall Paper Award and Marian Irish Award for best women and politics paper, the Midwest Political Science Association's Sophonisba Breckinridge Award for the best paper on the topic of women and politics, the Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties best article award, and the GESIS Klingemann Prize. She is the founding editor of the Cambridge University Press Elements in Gender and Politics Series and a founding member of the EGEN network. She has served as an associate editor at Politics & Gender, president of the Midwest Women’s Caucus, and executive board member of the APSA Women, Gender, and Politics Research Section.
Soledad Artiz Prillaman is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Stanford University. Her work focuses on understanding how and when women gain access to politics, both as citizens and representatives, in South Asia. Her work combines rigorous quantitative methodologies – experimental methods, causal inference, network analysis, and survey research – with in-depth qualitative fieldwork and theoretical development to identify empirical relationships as well as underlying causal mechanisms. Her first monograph, The Patriarchal Political Order: the making and unraveling of the gendered participation gap in India, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2023 as part of the Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics. She additionally has articles published in top political science journals, including the American Journal of Political Science and the Journal of Politics. Her research has received several awards, including the Juan Linz Award for the best dissertation in the comparative study of democracy. She is on the editorial board of Political Behavior.
Jakana Thomas is Associate Professor in the School of Global Policy and Strategy and the Department of Political Science at University of California San Diego. She serves as Research Advisor for the RESOLVE Network at the United States Institutes of Peace and associate editor at the Robert Jervis/H-DIPLO International Security Studies Forum. Her research focuses on political violence and conflict processes with an emphasis on understanding women’s participation in and experiences with contentious politics. She is co-lead on a Blue Shield Foundation funded project examining Californians’ experiences with violence across their lifespans (CalVEX). This project has produced a number of policy briefs and reports focusing on the implications of intimate partner violence in the United States. Her work has been published at the leading Political Science and International Relations journals, including the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics and International Organization, among other outlets.