Women, Men & Us Politics: 10 Big Questions

Jennifer L. Lawless is professor of government at American University, where she is also the director of the Women & Politics Institute. She received her Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University in 2003 and her B.A. from Union College in 1997. Professor Lawless's research, which has been supported by the National Science Foundation, focuses on representation, political ambition, and gender in the electoral process. She is the author of Becoming a Candidate: Political Ambition and the Decision to Run for Office (Cambridge University Press, 2012) and the coauthor of Women on the Run: Gender, Media, and Campaigns in a Polarized Era (Cambridge University Press, 2016), Running from Office: Why Young Americans Are Turned Off to Politics (Oxford University Press, 2015), and It Still Takes a Candidate: Why Women Don't Run for Office (Cambridge University Press, 2010). Her work has appeared in academic journals including the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Perspectives on Politics, Journal of Politics, Political Research Quarterly, Legislative Studies Quarterly, and Politics & Gender (of which she served as editor from 2010 till 2013). She is also a nationally recognized speaker on electoral politics. Her scholarly analysis and political commentary have been quoted in numerous newspapers, magazines, television news programs, and radio shows. For the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections, she was part of the NBC's Decision Night in America programming. In 2006, she sought the Democratic nomination to the U.S. House of Representatives in Rhode Island's second congressional district.