Elizabeth Sharrow

Elizabeth Sharrow is associate professor in the School of Public Policy and the Department of History. She specializes in the gendered politics of public policy and how policy has shaped intersectional meanings of sex, race, sexuality, disability, and class in US politics over the past fifty years.

Sharrow’s research interests are in the politics and history of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the politics of gender and race in US politics, the politics of the family, and the politics of college athletics. Her scholarship has been published in many forums, including: American Politics Research; the Journal of Women, Policy & Politics; Political Behavior; Political Communication; Political Research Quarterly; Politics & Gender; Politics, Groups, and Identities; Public Opinion Quarterly; Social Science Quarterly; the Oxford Bibliographies in Political Science, and in Stating the Family: New Directions in the Study of American Politics (eds. Julie Novkov and Carol Nackenoff, University Press of Kansas, 2020). Her work has also been featured by the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, Vox, the Scholars Strategy Network, the Gender Policy Report of the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, the Women's Sports Foundation, and Minnesota Public Radio, and she has published a coauthored opinion piece in the Washington Post.

Sharrow’s research is funded by the National Science Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, the American Association of University Women, the American Political Science Association, the Myra Sadker Foundation, the Gerald Ford Presidential Foundation, the National Collegiate Athletic Association, and the Massachusetts Historical Society. Her collaborative work with #MeTooPoliSci was coawarded the 2019 Jane Mansbridge Award from the National Women's Caucus for Political Science, “given on special occasions to extraordinary individuals who perform service above and beyond the call of duty on behalf of the WCPS and to advance opportunities for women in general.” She serves as a faculty athletic rep on the UMass Athletic Council, where she chairs the Equity & Diversity Subcommittee, and on the UMass Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies Advisory Board in the College of Humanities and Fine Arts. She currently sits on the editorial board of the American Political Science Review.

She teaches courses on the politics of public policy, and gender and race in policy history.

Sharrow received her PhD in political science with a minor program in feminist and critical sexuality studies from the University of Minnesota. She holds a master’s in public policy with a focus on gender, law, and sports policy from the Humphrey School of Public Affairs. Before becoming an academic, she worked as a collegiate women’s rowing coach and is a former collegiate rower.

Research interests

Title IX, gender and race in US politics, politics of the family, politics of college athletics