Hello! I am the 2024-2025 SAGE Sara Miller McCune Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. I am also an Associate Professor of Global Development Policy at Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies. I am Graduate Faculty with BU’s Department of Political Science, Associate Director of the Human Capital Initiative at the Global Development Policy Center and affiliated faculty with the Institute for Economic Development.
My research identifies the conditions under which political, economic, and social systems rebalance gendered power. I am 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. Gendered power hierarchies define our current political system, from the family to the local, national, and global. My work points to the need to critically reckon with the dual movements of progress towards and backlash against gender equality. Understanding the complexity of gendered power and the consequences of its disruption are necessary to solve the most intractable contemporary problems, from climate change to economic inequality and conflict.
My first book, Women, Power, and Property: The Paradox of Gender Equality Laws in India, won the American Political Science Association’s 2021 Luebbert Prize for the Best Book in Comparative Politics. It is published with Cambridge University Press, in the Cambridge Studies in Gender and Politics Series. I have published articles in the Journal of Politics, the Journal of Development Economics, and the Annual Review of Political Science, among others, and have been featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Ideas for India, India Development Review, Ms. Magazine, and The New Books Network, among other sites. My research has also been awarded the Midwest Political Science Association (MPSA)’s Pi Sigma Alpha Award for Best Paper and Kellogg/Notre Dame Award for Best Paper.
I have just received a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award (2024-2029) to study the dynamics of gender backlash across India, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and the United States. I am also advancing several projects that identify the causal impact of important global phenomena on the evolution of institutions. First, with Simon Chauchard and Alyssa Heinze, I study whether light touch changes that alter the rules of deliberation in local elected officials’ meetings can ensure that those elected to govern through quotas for typically-excluded groups (women in particular) actually shape government decisions. Our first piece, “Who Actually Governs?” is forthcoming at The Journal of Politics. In related work with Bhumi Purohit, Alyssa Heinze, Paromita Sen, the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) Bharat, and RSCD, we investigate the ability of peer mentorship by senior female elected leaders to improve the political agency of first-time female politicians in India. Finally, in solo and joint work with Akshay Dixit, I study the impact of climate change-induced weather shocks on women’s collective political engagement in Bangladesh, with funding by the National Bureau of Economic Research and the Gates Foundation. A first solo-authored article on the theory driving this project, “Climate Shocks & Gendered Political Transformation,” is published in Politics & Gender.
I also co-organize the Alliance for Afghan Women’s Economic Empowerment with the US State Department, which was launched by Secretary Blinken in September, 2022. My aim in this partnership is to ensure that the transformative power of women’s access to economic and political resources reaches excluded groups globally.
I am delighted to be Lead Co-Editor of the Cambridge University Press book series, Cambridge Studies in Gender & Politics, with Ana Catalano Weeks. Our Editorial Team also includes Tiffany Barnes, Diana O’Brien, Solédad Prillaman, Dawsn Teele, and Jakana Thomas. Please reach out to any of us if you are interested in submitting a manuscript for review.
You can read my CV here.