I am a political scientist in the Department of Government at Dartmouth College.
My research examines the extent to which formal institutional rules shape the possibilities for mobilization and policy change. I focus on three particular sets of formal rules: human rights treaties, specifically the United Nations’ Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), gender quota laws, which require political parties to nominate female candidates for office, and the Equal Rights Amendment in the United States.
My book, Defying Convention: US Resistance to the UN Treaty on Women's Rights (Cambridge University Press 2014) examines support for and opposition to ratification of CEDAW. It was awarded the 2015 Victoria Schuck Prize for the best book on women and politics, and the 2015 prize for the best book on human rights, by the American Political Science Association.
From 2015 to 2018, I served as the Cheheyl Professor and Director of the Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning (DCAL), Dartmouth's teaching and learning center.