PhD candidate Zhaozhi Li has been selected as a 2026 Ruth B. Mandel Dissertation Research Award recipient by the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) at Rutgers University’s Eagleton Institute of Politics. Li is one of four scholars selected nationally for the 2026 award.
The $2,000 award supports dissertation research on women, gender, and U.S. politics. Li's dissertation, "How Masculinity Shapes Political Attitudes," examines how migration-related status loss and masculinity shape political attitudes among immigrant men. Their work draws on qualitative interviews, survey experiments, and computational tools to analyze political text and media at different scales.
Li is also a graduate affiliate at the Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity, & Equity and the Political Data Science Lab. More broadly, Li's research interests span masculine grievance in politics, immigrant political incorporation, and political communication. Their work has appeared in the Journal of Experimental Political Science, Journal of Quantitative Description: Digital Media, and Applied Intelligence.
About the Award
The Ruth B. Mandel Award is named after Professor Ruth B. Mandel, co-founder of CAWP and Director of the Eagleton Institute of Politics for 24 years. From the center's website:
"Dr. Mandel’s leadership was critical to CAWP’s history and impact and as its director she built a national center with multi-faceted research, education, public service, and information programs, helping to define and build the field. For more than five decades, CAWP has been committed to promoting greater knowledge and understanding about the role of women in American politics, enhancing women's influence in public life, and expanding the diversity of women in politics and government.
We are grateful to her family for establishing an endowed Legacy Fund at CAWP which allows us to provide awards to graduate students working on dissertations in the field of women and American politics. CAWP is proud to ensure that Dr. Mandel’s work continues by supporting the next generation of gender and politics researchers and the latest research that will help to yield progress for women in U.S. politics.
We will award up to four Ruth B. Mandel Dissertation Research Awards annually, with the expectation that at least one award will be designated for a Rutgers University student. These awards, which will be $2,000/each in value, will support dissertation research on women, gender, and U.S. politics. Eligible recipients include advanced doctoral students from any relevant discipline at U.S.-based institutions who have successfully defended their dissertation proposal. We encourage applications from scholars who are traditionally underrepresented in the academy."
