Professor Brown received her PhD in Political Science in 2010 from Rutgers University, with major fields in Women and Politics and American Politics. She also holds a graduate certificate in Women's and Gender Studies. Dr. Brown's research interests lie broadly in identity politics, legislative studies, and Black women's studies. While trained as a political scientist, her scholarship on intersectionality seeks to push beyond disciplinary constraints to think more holistically about the politics of identity. Professor Brown came to Purdue in 2013 after initially teaching at St. Louis University.
Brown’s Sisters in the Statehouse: Black women and Legislative Decision Making (Oxford University press, 2014) has been awarded the National Conference of Black Political Scientists’ 2015 W.E.B. DuBois Distinguished Book Award. She is the author of numerous peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and book reviews that focus on identity politics in general and Black women's politics more specifically. Her current research projects address the politics of appearance for Black women candidates and lawmakers. Working with Professor Sarah Gershon (Georgia State University), she is currently coediting a volume entitled Distinct Identities (under contract with Routledge Press) on the intersection of race, ethnicity and gender in American Politics.
Dr. Nadia E. Brown is the recipient of the Midwest Women’s Caucus for Political Science Early Career Award (2013-2014). Her research has been funded by grants from the American Political Science Association, the Butler Center for Leadership and Excellence, and the C-SPAN Educational Foundation. Dr. Brown held the Jackie McLean Dissertation Fellowship at the University of Hartford (2009-2010). She has been awarded a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Newcomb College Institute at Tulane University for the Spring of 2016.
