Jennifer L. Lawless
Jennifer L. Lawless (born March 12, 1975) serves as the Commonwealth Professor of Politics of the University of Virginia and a faculty affiliate of the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, in addition to being a Non-Resident Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. Education Her father John, a Catholic and Wall Street broker for Dean Witter from 1961 - 1995, who commuted daily to NYC from upstate NY. Her mother, Marjorie Mensch was a Brooklyn born Jew and executive director of Middletown (NY) housing authority. Jen graduated Valedictorian of Middletown high school in 1993, in Orange county, New York. She turned down a full scholarship to Columbia University to attend Union College, where she received her B.A. from in 1997 and her Ph.D. from Stanford University in 2003; both degrees were in political science. Her doctoral dissertation was entitled "Women and Elections: Do They Run? Do They Win? Does it Matter?" Lawless was hired as an Assistant Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at Brown University from July 2003 to June 2009, and was shortly an Associate Professor from July to August 2009. She then joined the American University faculty in September 2009 as