I’m Sara Morell, a PhD candidate in Political Science at the University of Michigan. I specialize in American Politics with a focus on gender and political behavior.

My research explains state level variation in where women run for office, by connecting the growth of women’s political organizations to women’s representation in government. My work makes a novel contribution to our understanding of how candidate recruitment operates, by arguing that the success of candidate recruitment is conditional on recruitment being perceived as both credible and substantive. I apply this theory to women’s candidate training organizations, providing evidence that their unique approach to candidate recruitment is linked to increases in both individual-level women’s political ambition and aggregate shifts in political representation.

My teaching philosophy is grounded in a desire to ensure all students are scaffolded and challenged. I use my courses both to teach students to think critically about the political world and to give them an introduction to the tools of social science inquiry. I have mentored eight Research Assistants across three projects, even receiving a competitive Undergraduate Research Mentorship Award in 2022.

I use a broad range of methodological techniques in my research, including survey experiments, qualitative interviews and quasi-experimental statistical methods. My research has received generous support from Time-sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences (TESS), the Center for the Employment of Women (CEW), and the Gerald R. Ford Fellowship, among other awards and grants.

I can be reached at shmorell (at) umich (dot) edu.

lsa logoum logoU-M Privacy StatementAccessibility at U-M