Jennifer L. Lawless serves as the current director of the Women & Politics Institute, as well as an Associate Professor of Government at American University. She received her Ph.D. from Stanford University in 2003 and her B.A. in from Union College in 1997; both degrees were in political science. Lawless was hired at American University in the fall of 2009. Before this, Lawless was employed at Brown University as an Assistant Professor of Political Science. Lawless currently serves as the editor of Politics & Gender, a political science journal currently housed at the Women & Politics Institute.
The central focuses of Lawless’s courses and research are women and politics, campaigns, and elections. Courses she has taught at American University include: "Women & Politics," "Women & Political Leadership," and "Women, Politics & Public Policy." Her research regarding female candidates and election results is published in a number of political science journals, including American Journal of Political Science, Perspectives on Politics, Political Research Quarterly, Legislative Studies Quarterly, The Journal of Politics, Politics & Gender, and Women & Politics. News outlets regularly quote this scholarship, particularly during campaign season. Her commentary has appeared in newspapers such as, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today and other local publications. She has also been cited on CNN.com, MSNBC.com, and FOXNews.com and has published on CNN Opinion on CNN.com.[1][2][3][4][5][6]
With Richard L. Fox, Lawless is the co-author of two books: It Still Takes A Candidate: Why Women Don't Run for Office (Cambridge University Press, 2010) [1] and It Takes A Candidate: Why Women Don't Run for Office (Cambridge University Press, 2005). She is also the author of a Brookings Institution public policy report. Emerge America, the Women’s Campaign Forum, and other women’s organizations that recruit female political candidates frequently utilize this report for their own work.[7]
In 2006, Lawless ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in the Democratic Primary in Rhode Island’s second congressional district.[8] She did not win the primary and has not run in another election. Through her work at the Women & Politics Institute and her position as a board member of Emerge America she remains active in the political arena.