CAWP - Key Persons
Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) becomes the first Democratic woman to have been elected to the Senate without having previously filled an unexpired Congressional term.
Barbara Ann Mikulski, a Maryland Democrat, became the first Democratic woman elected to the Senate without previously filling an unexpired Congressional term. Combining her Senate service from 1987-2017 with her service in the US House of Representatives from 1977 to 1987, she is the longest-serving woman in the history of Congress.
Representative Barbara Kennelly (D-CT) became the first woman to hold the position of House Democratic chief deputy whip.
Job Titles:
- Representative
- Chairman of the Republican Conference, Is the Highest - Ranking Woman in Republican House Leadership
Representative Chase G. Woodhouse (D-CT) was the first woman to hold the position of secretary in the House Democratic Caucus.
Job Titles:
- Data Services Manager
- Data Services Manager at the Center for American Women
Chelsea Hill is the data services manager at the Center for American Women and Politics. She manages research, collection and organization of current and historical information about women's political participation. She responds to inquiries from the media, scholars, activists, officeholders and the general public. Each semester, Hill oversees a team of interns and student workers whose work is critical to the Center's ability to provide accurate and up-to-date information.
Previously for CAWP, Hill worked on #WhoTalks, a project in collaboration with GenderAvenger and the Women's Media Center that monitored gender disparities in election commentary among cable television outlets during the 2016 presidential election.
Hill received her B.A. in communication arts from Marymount Manhattan College and a master's in women and gender studies from Rutgers University in 2016. After completing her master's practicum at CAWP in 2015, she continues to explore the significance of gender and representation in the political arena.
Job Titles:
- Director of NEW Leadership® at the Center for American Women
- Director, New Leadership®
Christabel Cruz is the director of NEW Leadership® at the Center for American Women and Politics. Christabel is a current Ph.D. candidate in the department of political science at Rutgers University-New Brunswick where she is majoring in women and politics and minoring in American politics and race & ethnicity politics. Her graduate research explores Latina candidate emergence and political ambition in local ethnic politics. Christabel has previously worked as a part-time lecturer and teaching assistant at Rutgers University, where she has taught various political science courses, including Women & American Politics, as well as pedagogical courses for first-time college instructors. She has additionally worked in undergraduate student affairs at Rutgers University for many years in the offices of First Year Engagement, Learning Communities, and Multicultural Engagement. She graduated with a B.A. in Political Science and Art History from Rutgers in 2011, where she was also an Eagleton Undergraduate Associate. She received a Graduate Certificate in Women's and Gender Studies from Rutgers University in 2013.
Job Titles:
- Administrative Assistant
- Institute in 2015 As an Administrative Assistant
Colleen Martin joined the Institute in 2015 as an administrative assistant. She is responsible for maintaining database records, assisting with Ready to Run®, NEW Leadership™, and public programs, and handling CAWP administrative tasks. She has worked at the University since 2000 in departments such as The Institute for Research on Women, Payroll and University Accounting.
Job Titles:
- Director of Communications
- Director of Communications for the Center for American Women
Daniel De Simone is the director of communications for the Center for American Women and Politics. In this role, he promotes the mission of the Center through media outreach, maintaining relationships with journalists, and liaising with members of the media seeking to cover CAWP's work. He also coordinates with the various team members at CAWP to assist in building an overall communications strategy for the Center, as well as contributing writing and editing support for CAWP news, blogs, and other publications.
Prior to coming to CAWP, De Simone spent nine years as a reporter and researcher for The Asahi Shimbun, a leading Japanese daily newspaper, where he covered breaking news, politics, feature stories, and the Supreme Court.
De Simone earned an M.A. in East Asia Regional Studies from Columbia University and a B.A. in Creative Writing and Literature from the University of Houston.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Director of the Center for American Women and Politics
Debbie Walsh is director of the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP), a unit of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University. CAWP is nationally recognized as the leading source of scholarly research and current data about American women's political participation. Its mission is to promote greater knowledge and understanding about women's participation in politics and government and to enhance women's influence and leadership in public life.
Walsh joined the Center staff in 1981 and became the director in 2001. She oversees CAWP's multi-faceted programs that include:
leadership and campaign training programs that empower women of all ages to participate fully in politics and public life;
research illuminating women's distinctive contributions, roles and experiences in politics and government, including the impact of women officeholders and women's routes to elective office; and
up-to-the-minute information and historical perspectives about women as candidates, public officials and voters.
Walsh is frequently called upon by the media for information and comment, and she speaks to a variety of audiences across the country on topics related to women's political participation. She is a member of the Circle of Advisors to Rachel's Network and was named one of the 21 Leaders for the 21 st Century by Women's eNews. She earned her bachelor's degree in political science from SUNY Binghamton and her M.A. in political science from Rutgers, where she was an Eagleton Fellow.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was the first woman to run for the U.S. House of Representatives, even though she was not eligible to vote. She ran as an Independent from New York State, receiving 24 votes of 12,000 that were cast.
Hattie Wyatt Caraway (D-AR), appointed in 1931 to fill a vacancy caused by her husband's death, ran for a full term and became the first woman elected to the Senate, where she served two full terms. She was the first woman to chair a Senate committee - the Committee on Enrolled Bills, a minor post.
As associate director of the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP), Jean Sinzdak is responsible for developing strategic initiatives and projects, as well as general administrative oversight. An experienced program director with a strong background in women's leadership development and civic engagement initiatives, she directs CAWP's Program for Women Public Officials, which aims to increase the impact of women in politics and make political women's leadership more effective through national, regional, and local events and programs for women officeholders, candidates, and campaign operatives. She is currently expanding the national network of Ready to Run® of campaign trainings for women, a bipartisan effort to recruit and train women to run for all levels of office.
Sinzdak also oversees CAWP's New Jersey initiatives, including Ready to Run® New Jersey and the Bipartisan Coalition for Women's Appointments. She was a leader in the development of the Diversity Initiative of Ready to Run® New Jersey, designed to attract more women of color to the political process.
She is the project director of Teach a Girl to Lead®, a national education and awareness campaign to re-envision what public leaders look like, inspire girls and young women to follow in their footsteps, and make women's political leadership visible to America's youth. Sinzdak was instrumental in organizing The 2012 Project, a national nonpartisan campaign to recruit women to run for office in 2012, she helped coordinate project faculty, communications, and campaign strategy.
Prior to joining CAWP, she served as director of outreach and communications at the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR) in Washington, DC. Earlier, she worked at the Council for Urban Economic Development, also in Washington, DC. Sinzdak received a Master of Social Work, specializing in social and economic development, from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and a B.A. in English from the University of Scranton.
Jeannette Rankin, a Republican from Montana became the first woman ever elected to Congress. She served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1917 to 1919 and again from 1941 to 1942; a pacifist, she was the only lawmaker to vote against U.S. entry into both world wars.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University - Camden
- Associate Professor of Political Science, Rutgers - Camden Director of Research and CAWP Scholar
Kelly Dittmar is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University-Camden; and Director of Research and Scholar at the Center for American Women and Politics at the Eagleton Institute of Politics. She is the co-author of A Seat at the Table: Congresswomen's Perspectives on Why Their Representation Matters (Oxford University Press, 2018) (with Kira Sanbonmatsu and Susan J. Carroll) and author of Navigating Gendered Terrain: Stereotypes and Strategy in Political Campaigns (Temple University Press, 2015). Dittmar's research focuses on gender and American political institutions. Dittmar was an American Political Science Association (APSA) Congressional Fellow from 2011 to 2012. At CAWP, she manages national research projects, helps to develop and implement CAWP's research agenda, and contributes to CAWP reports, publications, and analyses. She also works with CAWP's programs for women's public leadership and has been an expert source and commentator for media outlets including MSNBC, NPR, PBS, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. Dittmar earned her B.A. from Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, MI and her Ph.D. from Rutgers University-New Brunswick.
Kimberly Peeler-Allen has been working at the intersection of race, gender and politics for almost 20 years. Kimberly is the Co-founder of Higher Heights, a national organization building the political power and leadership of Black women from the voting booth to elected office.
Kimberly and her Co-Founder Glynda Carr have built Higher Heights from an idea on the back of a placemat into a network of over 90,000 members, donors and activists across the country that have helped elect 10 Black women to Congress, 1 Black woman to the US Senate and grow the number of Black women in statewide executive office and leading our nation's largest cities.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Political Science and CAWP Senior Scholar
- Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University
Kira Sanbonmatsu is Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University and Senior Scholar at the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) at the Eagleton Institute of Politics. Her research interests include gender, race/ethnicity, parties, public opinion, and state politics. Her most recent book, coauthored with Kelly Dittmar and Susan J. Carroll, is A Seat at the Table: Congresswomen's Perspectives on Why Their Presence Matters (Oxford University Press, 2018). She is also the coauthor (with Susan J. Carroll) of More Women Can Run: Gender and Pathways to the State Legislatures (Oxford University Press, 2013). Sanbonmatsu coauthored the CAWP reports Representation Matters: Women in the U.S. Congress (2017) and Poised to Run: Women's Pathways to the State Legislatures (2009). She is also the author of Where Women Run: Gender and Party in the American States (University of Michigan Press, 2006) and Democrats, Republicans, and the Politics of Women's Place (University of Michigan Press, 2002). Her articles have appeared in such journals as American Journal of Political Science, Politics & Gender, and Party Politics. She co-edits the CAWP Series in Gender and American Politics at the University of Michigan Press with Susan J. Carroll. Sanbonmatsu received her B.A. from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and her Ph.D. from Harvard University. She was previously Associate Professor of Political Science at The Ohio State University.
Representative Mae Ella Nolan (R-CA) became the first woman to chair a congressional committee when, during the 68th Congress, she chaired the Committee on Expenditures in the Post Office Department.
Margaret Chase Smith (R-ME) became the first woman elected to the Senate without having first been appointed to serve. Smith had first come to Congress when elected to fill her deceased husband's House seat; she went on to be elected to the Senate in her own right. With her election to the Senate, Smith also became the first woman to serve in both houses of Congress.
Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) became the first woman to head her party in Congress when she was elected by her colleagues as House Democratic Leader.
Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) becomes the first woman to serve as speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Olympia Snowe (R-ME) became the first woman (and the only Republican woman) to have been elected to her State House, State Senate, U.S. House and U.S. Senate. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) also followed this path to the U.S. Senate, making her the first Democrat to do so.
Patsy Takemoto Mink, a Democrat from Hawaii, became the first woman of color and the first woman of Asian-Pacific Islander descent in the U.S. House of Representatives. She served until 1977 and was re-elected in 1990.
Job Titles:
- Chairman in Women 's Political Leadership
Job Titles:
- Research Associate
- Research Associate at the Center for American Women
Shikshya Adhikari is the Research Associate at the Center for American Women and Politics. She has three years of experience working as a mixed-methods researcher and managing research projects at the Center for Policy Research, University at Albany. She has also worked for disaster response projects at CARE Nepal for two years, where she conducted baseline and impact assessment studies, reported on projects' progress and reach, helped manage grants, and wrote funding proposals.
Job Titles:
- Director of Development, Eagleton Institute of Politics
- Role of Development Director at the Eagleton Institute of Politics
Before assuming the role of development director at the Eagleton Institute of Politics, Nemeth served for nearly three decades as director of development for the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP), a unit of the Eagleton Institute. She has raise funds for national Forums for Women State Legislators, the national expansion of NEW Leadership® residential programs for college women and Ready to Run® nonpartisan campaign trainings for women, and its newest national initiative, Teach a Girl to Lead®. To engage prominent women and men in the mission of the Center, Nemeth helped establish endowed Legacy Funds honoring the lifetime achievements of donors. She created the popular Women of Power networking event to underwrite CAWP's flagship educational programs in New Jersey.
Job Titles:
- Professor
- Professor Emerita of Political Science and CAWP Senior Scholar
Susan J. Carroll is professor emerita of political science and women's and gender studies at Rutgers University and senior scholar at the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) of the Eagleton Institute of Politics. Her books include: A Seat at the Table: Congresswomen's Perspectives on Why Their Presence Matters (Oxford forthcoming 2018, with Kelly Dittmar and Kira Sanbonmatsu); Gender and Elections: Shaping the Future of American Politics (Fourth Edition, Cambridge 2018, with Richard L. Fox); More Women Can Run: Gender and Pathways to State Legislatures (Oxford 2013, with Kira Sanbonmatsu); Women and American Politics: New Questions, New Directions (Oxford 2003); The Impact of Women in Public Office (Indiana 2001); and Women as Candidates in American Politics (Second Edition, Indiana 1994). Carroll also has published numerous journal articles and book chapters focusing on women candidates, voters, elected officials, and political appointees in the United States. Carroll is a founder and former president of the Organized Section for Women and Politics Research of the American Political Science Association, and she currently co-edits the CAWP Series in Gender and American Politics, a book series published by the University of Michigan Press. She is the recipient of the Lifetime Contribution to Political Studies Award of the Political Studies Association in the United Kingdom as well as the Outstanding Professional Achievement Award from the Women's Caucus of the Midwest Political Science Association. As a nationally recognized expert on women's political participation, Carroll is frequently called upon for media commentary.
Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat from Wisconsin, became the first openly gay or lesbian person elected to Congress as a non-incumbent. She was also Wisconsin's first woman in Congress. In 2012, she became the first openly gay or lesbian person elected to the US Senate.
Job Titles:
- Administrative Assistant at the Center for American Women and Politics
- Research and Administrative Assistant
Thu Nguyen is the Research and Administrative Assistant at the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP). In this role, Thu is responsible for assisting in management and operations on CAWP's short and long-term research projects, in addition to supporting and coordinating CAWP's research translation work.
Prior to her time at CAWP, Thu was a full-time undergraduate student in the Honors College at Rutgers University-Camden. She led Iota Iota Iota, a National Women's Studies Honor Society promoting feminist values, diversity, and egalitarianism. Thu was also a Teaching Assistant for the Gender Studies Program on campus. Thu graduated summa cum laude in 2022 with a B.A. in Political Science and Gender Studies from Rutgers University-Camden.