Biography

Alixandra B. Yanus is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research interests lie in the areas of judicial politics, interest groups, and women and politics. Her dissertation focuses on the ability of the courts to affect the agendas of other political actors.

She is co-author of Essentials of American Government: Roots and Reform (with Karen O’Connor and Larry J. Sabato), a text she uses to teach her Introduction to American Government classes. These classes also have an additional theme, The Bill of Rights in Modern America, which challenges students to consider how Americans’ rights and liberties have evolved throughout history.

Her work on abortion litigation has received the Southern Political Science Association’s Marian Irish Award for the Best Paper in Women and Politics (2005). She also is a past recipient of the University of North Carolina Department of Political Science’s Q. Whitfield Ayres Fellowship for the study of liberty and markets.

Ali completed her undergraduate work at The American University, Washington D.C., where she worked at the Women & Politics Institute. She was also a recipient of the University’s award for Outstanding Scholarship at the Undergraduate Level.

In her free time, she enjoys traveling, shoe shopping, rooting for the Tar Heels men’s basketball team, and supporting the 2008 World Champion Philadelphia Phillies. She has been to more than 60 different baseball stadiums, including twenty-five major league ballparks.