Current Scholar Bios
Naomi Murakawa is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Washington. She is broadly interested in racial politics, American political development, and crime policy and the carceral state. She received her B.A. in Women's Studies from Columbia University, her M.Sc. in Social Policy from the London School of Economics, and her Ph.D. in Political Science from Yale University. Her book manuscript, provisionally titled Electing to Punish: Race and the American Carceral State, is based on her dissertation, which won the Law and Society Dissertation Prize, as well as the American Political Science Association Best Dissertation in Race, Ethnicity and Politics. As a RWJ Scholar, Naomi will research how the War on Drugs is changing as it confronts high-profile white drug epidemics.