Announcing the Inaugural Ruth B. Mandel Award Recipients

The Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP), a unit of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University, is pleased to announce the four recipients of our 2023 Ruth B. Mandel Dissertation Research Awards. The inaugural group of awardees are PhD candidates from across the country doing important work that expands our understanding of women’s role in American politics. They are:

Karra McCray Gibson (Brown University)

The New Congressional Black Caucus: Differentiating Divisions within the CBC

By investigating ideological heterogeneity among the members of the Congressional Black Caucus, this project seeks to understand the interaction between intersectional representation of individual members and the collective voice of the Congressional Black Caucus in Washington.

Michelle Irving (Rutgers University)

The Mominees’ Dilemma: The Raced-Gendered Experience of Moms Running for Office

This project examines how motherhood intersects with racial and ethnic identities of women candidates, as well as the opportunities and constraints of mothers and whether those may vary based on racial identity and partisan status.

Rana B. McReynolds (University of California, Davis)

Intersectional Stereotyping and Voter Bias: The Impact of Mammy, Jezebel, and Sapphire Stereotypes on Black Women Candidates

This dissertation research examines voter perceptions of Black women candidates, with specific focus on how historical stereotypes of Black women may influence voter assessments of Black women running for office.

Crystal Robertson (University of California, Los Angeles)

Marginality in the Movement: The Effect of Intersectionality on Activist Strategies

Does intersectional identity in activist leaders impact their strategies for mobilization? This project seeks to understand how these leaders account for potential resistance to their identities in developing appeals to a broad audience.

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.

“The exciting range of research being supported by this fellowship would certainly make my mother proud,” said Dr. Maud S. Mandel, Ruth Mandel’s daughter and the president of Williams College. “She cared deeply about nurturing talent among young scholars and practitioners, and it is exciting to see her commitments live on in this next generation.”

“We are deeply grateful to Maud Mandel and Ruth’s entire family for their generosity in establishing the CAWP Legacy Fund that makes these awards possible,” said CAWP Director Debbie Walsh. “We can’t imagine a more fitting tribute to Ruth’s legacy than supporting future generations of scholars of women and politics, a field that Ruth played an instrumental role in creating. We miss her every day, but her life’s work lives on.”

Learn more about the Ruth B. Mandel Dissertation Research Awards here, the 2023 recipients here, and the remarkable life of Ruth Mandel here.