People
Lenear, India
- India Lenear
- GRADUATE STUDENT
- Subfield: American Politics, Women & Politics, Race and Ethnicity Politics
- LENEAR_CV_September_2025.pdf
- Specialties:
Black Women’s Politics; Public Opinion; Political Behavior; Political Psychology; Political Communication; Political Institutions; Black Feminism(s)/Womanism; Mixed Methods
Statistical Packages: SPSS, R Studio, NVivo, MaxQDA | Interpretivist Approaches to Focus Groups and Interviews | Ethnographic Approaches to Case Studies | Narrative Research | Grounded Theory | Content Analysis and Mixed Method Text Analysis |
- Bio:
India S. Lenear (she/her/hers) is a sixth-year ABD Doctoral Candidate in the Department of Political Science at Rutgers University. She is a 2025-2026 Dissertation Fellowship recipient of the American Association of University Women and holds certificates in Africana Studies and Women’s and Gender Studies. India’s work broadly studies Women and politics, Black Politics, and American Politics. She is interested in how race and gender mediate the relationships between political behavior, political socialization, public opinion, and participation. Specifically, her scholarly work lies at the center of this experience, using a bottom-up and mixed-method approach to understanding the US political ecosystem. Her dissertation examines Black women's ideological self-identification, beliefs, and attitudes through mixed methods and their effect within formal and informal political spheres.
India is a member of the American Political Science Association’s Committee on the Status of Graduate Students as of Fall 2024. She is a proud alumna of North Carolina Central University, graduating magna cum laude in 2018.
- Teaching:
Instructor of Record, Summer 2025, American Government
Instructor of Record, Fall 2024, Topics in Political Science: Race, Gender, and American Politics
Instructor of Record, Summer 2024, American Government
Teaching Assistant, Fall 2022- Spring 2024, Law and Politics
- Publications:
Lenear, India S., and Yalidy Matos. 2025. “In Solidarity: Predicting African American and Black Immigrant Women’s Solidarity with Immigrants.” Politics & Gender: 1–40. doi:10.1017/S1743923X25000157.
Brown, Nadia E., and India S. Lenear. 2023. “Ties That Bind: Black Women Candidates and Familial Influence on Political Socialization in the US.” In Feminisms in Movement: Theories and Practices from the Americas, Gender studies, eds. Lívia De Souza Lima, Edith Otero Quezada, and Julia Roth. Bielefeld: transcript, 161–72.
Wright, Andrene, Claire Crawford, and India Lenear. 2023. “The Legacy of Dr. Mae C. King: NCOBPS Founders’ Symposium 2023.” National Review of Black Politics 4(1–2): 28–34. https://doi.org/10.1525/nrbp.2023.4.1-2.28
Lenear, India S. 2022. “The Future of Black Feminism and Black Women Political Elites: A Reflexive Interview with Duchess Harris.” Journal of Women, Politics & Policy 43(3): 390–96. https://doi.org/10.1080/1554477X.2022.2078609
Brown, Nadia E., Jasmine Jackson, Aayana Ingram, India Lenear, and Ariel D. Smith. 2021. “Black Lady Classroom.” In The Palgrave Handbook of Political Research Pedagogy, Political Pedagogies, eds. Daniel J. Mallinson, Julia Marin Hellwege, and Eric D. Loepp. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 239–48. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-76955-0_20.
- Research:
Research Interests: Black Women’s Politics; Black Politics; Women and Gender Politics; Race and Ethnicity Politics; Public Opinion; Political Behavior; Political Psychology; Political Communication; Political Institutions; Black Feminism(s)/Womanism; Mixed Methods
Dissertation Title: From Margin to Center: Investigating Black Women’s Diverse Ideologies
Dissertation Committee: Kira Sanbonmatsu (Co-Chair), Nadia E. Brown (Co-Chair), Nikol Alexander-Floyd, Yalidy Matos, Jamil S. Scott