Dr. Shames received her Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2014 and was tenured at Rutgers University-Camden in 2019. She studies and teaches American politics, with a focus on gender and race. She has published books, chapters, journal articles, and reports on women as candidates, women of color and political ambition, intersectionality, Republican women, backlash, public opinion, and public policy.  She teaches courses on executive power, dystopian government, women and politics, race and politics, social movements, quantitative and qualitative methods, and more.  She won the Rutgers-Camden Chancellor's Awards for Teaching and for Research Creativity, both in 2018, and has served as President of the Women & Politics Organized Section of APSA (the American Political Science Association). She served several years in faculty governance at Rutgers-Camden, including as Vice President of the Faculty Senate and a one-year term on the Faculty Council, an advisory body to the Chancellor's office.  Prior to her academic career, Professor Shames worked for several years in nonprofit and political offices in New York and Washington, D.C.