Danielle Thomsen

Danielle Thomsen is an Assistant Professor in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. She received her Ph.D. from Cornell University in 2014. Her book, Opting Out of Congress: Partisan Polarization and the Decline of Moderate Candidates (New York: Cambridge University Press), examines the rise of partisan polarization in Congress. Thomsen's research interests include American politics, political parties, U.S. Congress, and gender and politics, including work that analyzes contemporary patterns of women’s representation and why the number of Democratic women in Congress has increased dramatically since the 1980s while the number of Republican women has barely grown. Her research has been published in the Journal of Politics, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Political Behavior, Political Research Quarterly, and State Politics & Policy Quarterly and she is the 2015 recipient of the E.E. Schattschneider Award for the Best Dissertation in American Politics.