About CAWP

If you'd like to reach a CAWP staff member, call (732) 932-9384; when you hear the Eagleton Institute answering system, enter the extension listed below.

Debbie Walsh - full bio available here; photo available here
Director, CAWP
Ext. 227; e-mail: walsh @ rci.rutgers.edu
Debbie Walsh is director of the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP). She joined the CAWP staff in 1981. As director of the Center, she oversees CAWP's research, education and public service programs. She is frequently called upon by the media for information and comment and speaks to a variety of audiences around the country on topics related to women's political participation. First as director of CAWP's Program for Women Public Officials and now as the Center's director, Walsh has led the Center's extensive work with women officeholders and organized more than a dozen national conferences for women officials. Walsh serves on the New Jersey Advisory Commission on the Status of Women, having been appointed by Governor James McGreevey and reappointed by Governor Jon Corzine.She earned her B.A. in political science from SUNY Binghamton and her M.A. in political science from Rutgers, where she was an Eagleton Fellow.

Susan J. Carroll - full bio available here; short vita available here
Senior Scholar     photo available here
Ext. 235; e-mail: scarroll @ rci.rutgers.edu
Susan Carroll joined the Center in 1981; she is also professor of political science at Rutgers. She has conducted research on women candidates, voters, elected officials, and political appointees and is the author of various works on women's political participation including Women as Candidates in American Politics (Indiana University Press, Second Edition, 1994) and editor of The Impact of Women in Public Office (Indiana, 2001) and Women and American Politics: New Questions, New Directions (Oxford, 2003). Her Ph.D. in political science is from Indiana University.

Katherine Kleeman - full bio available here
Senior Communications Officer
Ext. 231; e-mail: kleeman @ rci.rutgers.edu
Kathy Kleeman has been at the Center since 1980. She writes or edits many of the Center's proposals and publications,  coordinates development of new programs, and leads CAWP's work with Girl Scouts.  Kleeman earned her A.B. from Harvard/Radcliffe and her Ed.M. from Harvard's Graduate School of Education.

Ruth B. Mandel - full bio available here
Board of Governors Professor of Politics and Director of the Eagleton Institute of Politics
Ext 228; e-mail: RMandel @ rci.rutgers.edu
Ruth B. Mandel, a founder of CAWP in 1971, was its director until January 1995. Currently she is director of the Eagleton Institute of Politics and remains associated with CAWP as senior scholar. An expert on women and politics, Mandel writes and teaches about women's political history and leadership. Her Ph.D. is from the University of Connecticut.

Gilda Morales - full bio available here
Project Manager, Information Services
Ext. 264; e-mail: gilda.morales @ rutgers.edu
Gilda Morales researches, collects and organizes current and historical data on women's political participation. She responds to inquiries from media, scholars, office holders and the general public. Morales earned her B.A. from Douglass College and an M.P.A. from Rutgers University.

Susan Nemeth - full bio available here
Director of Development  
Ext. 229; e-mail: gsnemeth @ rci.rutgers.edu
As CAWP’s director of development since 1992, Nemeth has helped develop regional and national Forums for Women State Legislators, NEW Leadership™ residential programs for college women, Ready to Run™ campaign training programs for women, and research on women’s routes to elective office. The Center’s public service programs currently serve women in twenty-five states. In addition to managing CAWP’s fundraising, she serves as a public relations specialist, helping to promote new programs and recruit participants. Nemeth earned a B.A. from Douglass College and a mini-MBA from the Rutgers Center for Management Development.

Sasha Patterson
Program Manager, NEW Leadership™
Ext. 248; e-mail: sashap @ rci.rutgers.edu
Sasha Patterson came to came to work at CAWP in August of 1999. Patterson received her B.A. in political science from Northwestern University and her M.A. from Rutgers in 1995. In 2008, she received her Ph.D. in political science, focusing on women and politics and public law. She has written and presented a number of conference papers on the issue of sexual harassment.

Linda Phillips
Unit Computing Specialist
Ext. 225; e-mail: liphilli @ rci.rutgers.edu
Linda Phillips is responsible for the production of various in-house publications at CAWP and Eagleton, including the CAWP fact sheets and both the Eagleton and CAWP newsletters. In addition, she is responsible for the creation and upkeep of the CAWP and Eagleton web sites and provides computer support for CAWP and the Eagleton Institute of Politics.

Jessica Rowan
Administrative Assistant
Ext. 224; e-mail: jrowan @ rutgers.edu
Jessica Rowan performs a variety of administrative duties for both the Center for American Women and Politics and the Eagleton Institute of Politics. She is responsible for the maintenance and general administration of the CAWP and Eagleton database and provides desktop computer support. Prior to joining CAWP, she worked both in the private and the public arenas. After being accepted in the competitive Assistants Américains en France program with the Centre international d’études pédagogiques, she worked in France. Rowan earned a B.A. in political science and French from Douglass College, Rutgers University, where she received the Nancy Becker Award for Public Leadership.

Kira Sanbonmatsu - C.V. available here
Associate Professor of Political Science and CAWP Senior Scholar
Ext. 265; e-mail: sanbon @ rci.rutgers.edu
Kira Sanbonmatsu is Associate 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. She 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. Her research interests include gender, race/ethnicity, parties, public opinion, and state politics. She co-edits the CAWP Series in Gender and American Politics at the University of Michigan Press with Susan J. Carroll. She is 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.

Jean Sinzdak
Project Manager, Program for Women Public Officials
Ext. 260; e-mail: sinzdak @ rci.rutgers.edu
Jean Sinzdak coordinates CAWP's Program for Women Public Officials, aimed at increasing the impact of women in politics and making political women’s leadership more effective through national, regional, and local events and programs for women officeholders, candidates, and campaign operatives. Sinzdak also manages CAWP’s New Jersey initiatives, including Ready to Run™, a bipartisan effort to recruit and train women to run for all levels of office, and the Bipartisan Coalition for Women's Appointments.  She was instrumental in the development of the Diversity Initiative of Ready to Run™ New Jersey, designed to attract more women of color to the political process.  Sinzdak is currently developing a national network of campaign trainings for women, using Ready to Run™ New Jersey program as the model. Prior to joining CAWP, she served as director of outreach and communications at the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR) in Washington, DC. Prior to IWPR, 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.