2025 Ruth B. Mandel Dissertation Research Awardees Deepen Understanding of Gender, Race, and Political Power

The Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP), a unit of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University, is pleased to announce the 2025 recipients of our Ruth B. Mandel Dissertation Research Awards. In the program’s third year, four scholars were selected for their research on the role of gender in American political life.

2025 Ruth B. Mandel Dissertation Research Awardees:  

A.J. Boyd (Rutgers University)

Black Athenas: The Politics and Power of Black Officers in the 1940s Women’s Army Corps

This study describes Black women officers in the Women’s Army Corps as power brokers between Black women and the state, navigating competing expectations of enlisted women and military leadership while determining how to successfully act as agents of change for Black womanhood. 

Samyu Comandur (University of California, Los Angeles)

Better Safe Than Sorry: Women of Color’s Preferences Toward Anti-Abortion Protest Interventions

This research investigates women of color’s attitudes toward anti-abortion protest interventions, with the hypothesis that intersectional linked fate, or feelings that individual interests are linked to those of women of color as a whole, is a pertinent determinant of attitudes toward anti-abortion protest interventions. 

India S. Lenear (Rutgers University) 

From Margin to Center: Investigating Black Women's Diverse Political Ideologies

This multi-method project challenges assumptions of political uniformity among Black women and constructs a new typology to better understand Black women’s ideological preferences in ways that better attend to Black women’s intersectional positions.

Alex Snipes (Emory University)

Identity, Ideology, and Strategic Context in Congressional Elections

In addition to examining how gender-ideology stereotypes shape the electoral opportunities and outcomes for women congressional candidates in the U.S., this dissertation theorizes that Trumpism has created a pathway for Republican women candidates to align with the hypermasculine ethos of the MAGA movement while still embracing stereotypically feminine messaging. 

“These emerging scholars are conducting important and innovative research that broadens our understanding of women’s relationship with power in America,” said Kelly Dittmar, director of research at CAWP. “We are proud to support their work and grateful to Dr. Ruth B. Mandel’s family for making it possible.”

The Ruth B. Mandel Dissertation Research Awards were established in honor of our founding director, Ruth B. Mandel, whose leadership was critical in building CAWP into a national center with multi-faceted research, education, public service, and information programs, helping to define and build the field. The Mandel Awards support dissertation research on women, gender, and U.S. politics and are $2,000 each in value.

Learn more about the Ruth B. Mandel Dissertation Research Awards and its previous cohorts here, the 2025 recipients here, and the remarkable life of Ruth B. Mandel here.