Catherine Bolzendahl is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Irvine. Her work stands at the intersection of political sociology and the sociology of gender, framing gender as a fundamental basis of inequality and source of societal change. She is affiliated with the Center for the Study of Democracy, the Center for Demographic and Social Analysis, and the Center for Organizational Studies. She is also affiliated with the Master’s Program in Public Policy and the Department of Gender and Sexuality Studies.

Her ongoing work focuses on better understanding the institutionalization of gender within political organizations and legislative institutions, with a recent publication in Gender & Society and a chapter in a forthcoming edited volume with colleagues Amy Alexander and Farida Jalalzai. Their book Measuring Women’s Political Empowerment across the Globe (forthcoming with Palgrave) brings together a international group of scholars and is the first theoretical treatment of the diverse, multi-level, international issues at the center of measuring women’s political empowerment. Other ongoing projects include an examination of comparative support for same-sex parents with Simon Cheng and Brian Powell, and an examination of support for equal representation for women and Māori in New Zealand with Hilde Coffé.