Andrea Aldrich is an Assistant Professor of Political Science whose research examines political representation, gender, and comparative political institutions. Her work explores the conditions that foster women's political leadership and the consequences of women in power, with particular attention to how the internal organization of political parties and electoral rules shape representation. Focusing on parties in Western and Eastern Europe and the European Union, she investigates how party structures promote women to positions of power and interact with system-level institutions. Her research has appeared in The Journal of Politics, Party Politics, and Politics & Gender, among others. She is the author of Gender Quotas as Game Changers for the Recruitment, Selection, and Performance of Elected Politicians (Oxford University Press), co-authored with William Daniel, and Glass Ceilings, Glass Cliffs, and Quicksands: Gendered Party Leadership in Parliamentary Systems (Cambridge University Press), co-authored with Zeynep Somer-Topcu. Prior to Pitt, she was a Senior Lecturer and the Director of Undergraduate Studies in Political Science at Yale University, where she was awarded the Poorvu Family Fund for Academic Innovation Award for excellence in teaching in 2025. 

Course Taught

PS 1804 - Women, Politics and Policy

PS 1361 - Comparative Political Party Systems