Leah Rosenstiel

Assistant Professor

Leah Rosenstiel is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt University. She studies American political institutions, with a focus on Congress and public policy. A central interest of her work is understanding how the structure of political institutions shapes outcomes. Her book project examines how the congressional bargaining process shapes, and at times distorts, federal grant programs. She shows that legislators alter grant programs to bring more funding to their states. What is more, she shows how institutional features, such as the committee system and majority rule, can both improve and reduce the targeting of federal funding to areas with the greatest need. Taken together, these findings have important implications for the effectiveness of federal programs and who benefits most from these programs.

 

Dr. Rosenstiel received a Joint Ph.D. in Politics and Social Policy from Princeton University in 2021 and a B.A. in Political Science from Carleton College in 2014. Prior to beginning her graduate studies, she worked as a research assistant on K-12 education policy at the Congressional Research Service.

 

 

Representative publications

• Hammond, Ben and Leah Rosenstiel. 2020. "Measuring the Influence of Political Actors on the Federal Budget." American Political Science Review 114(2): 603-608.
• View Curriculum Vitae