I joined the Department of Political Science with a joint appointment in the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program at Washington University in St. Louis in September 2005. I received my Ph.D. in Political Science in February 2005 from Columbia University. My doctoral dissertation, entitled Politicizing Representation: Campaigns for Candidate Gender Quotas Worldwide, received an Honorable Mention from the American Political Science Association for the Best Dissertation on Women and Politics in 2006.

My first book, Quotas for Women in Politics: Gender and Candidate Selection Reform Worldwide, was published in 2009 by Oxford University Press. I have written scholarly articles appearing in the British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Politics, the European Journal of Political Research, Political Research Quarterly, and Politics & Gender, among others. In addition, I am co-editor with Sarah Childs of Women, Gender, and Politics: A Reader, forthcoming with Oxford University Press, and co-editor with Fiona Mackay of Gender, Politics, and Institutions: Toward a Feminist Institutionalism, forthcoming as a launch title for the new Gender and Politics Series at Palgrave Macmillan. My current research explores the global diffusion of electoral quotas for women and minorities, as well as the broader significance of quota policies to existing dynamics of political representation.

Since 2006, I have been co-convenor with Fiona Mackay, Louise Chappell, and Georgina Waylen of the Feminism and Institutionalism International Network. I received the Sophonisba Breckinridge Award in 2008 from the Midwest Political Science Association for a paper co-authored with Diana Z. O'Brien, as well as the Women's Caucus Prize in 2009 from the Northeastern Political Science Association for a paper co-authored with Farida Jalalzai. In 2009, I was also honored with an Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award from the Graduate Student Senate and Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Washington University.

In 2008-2009, I was a Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and a Fellow in the Women and Public Policy Program at the Harvard Kennedy School. Prior to coming to Washington University, I was an Economic and Social Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Politics at the University of Bristol (2004-2005). I have also been a visiting researcher at the University of Stockholm (2001-2002), the University of Helsinki (1997-1998), the Autonomous University of Madrid (1995-1996), and the University of Oslo (1995).