About Me

Jessica Trounstine earned her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, San Diego in 2004 and is now a Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt University.  Previously, she served as the Foundation Board of Trustees Presidential Chair and Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Merced and as an Assistant Professor of Politics and Public Policy at Princeton University.   She is the author of Segregation by Design: Local Politics and Inequality in American Cities (Cambridge University Press), winner of the Best Book in the Field from the Urban Affairs Association, the J. David Greenstone Prize, and the Best Book on Race, Ethnicity, and Urban Politics from the American Political Science Association.   She is also the author of the award winning book, Political Monopolies in American Cities: The Rise and Fall of Bosses and Reformers (University of Chicago Press), along with dozens of articles and book chapters.  She was selected as a 2022 Andrew Carnegie Fellow.  Trounstine’s work studies representation and inequality in American democracy using varied quantitative and qualitative methods.  She consults for various governments and community organizations; and serves on numerous editorial and foundation boards.