Headshot of Dr.Andrea Y. Simpson

Dr. Andrea Y. Simpson

Associate Professor of Political Science
  • Profile

    Professor Simpson is a scholar of United States politics with concentrations in Black politics and the politics of gender and intersectionality. The Race, Ethnicity, and Politics section of the American Political Science Association named her first book, The Tie that Binds (NYU Press, 1998) the “Best Book of 1998 on Racial Identity.” Simpson served as Chair of the Department of Political Science from 2011 through 2014. Elected to the Executive Committee of the American Political Science Association in 2006, she served on that committee until 2008. She was Program Chair of the Western Political Science Association’s Annual Meeting in 2008, and President of the Western Political Science Association in 2009. Simpson is currently working on essays on the nature of intersectional status among women in academia, corporate leadership, and politics.

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    • Awards

      Recipient, Distinguished Educator Award, University of Richmond, August 2015. The Distinguished Educator Awards have been honoring excellence in teaching at the University of Richmond since 1975. The Cabell Foundation awarded a grant to the University for the promotion and retention of outstanding faculty and promote excellence in teaching.

      Omicron Delta Kappa Award, University of Richmond, March 2013, for outstanding service to students in and out of the classroom.

      Professional Achievement Award for a Woman of Color, presented by the Women’s Caucus of the American Political Science Association at the 2009 Annual Meeting in Toronto, Canada.

      Recipient, Lifetime Membership in the WILL Program (Women Involved in Living and Learning), for contributions to the scholarship and development of the Westhampton College Women. University of Richmond, May 2007.

      Best Paper on Blacks and Politics, 2007, Western Political Science Association, for Intersectionality, Leadership, and the Environmental Justice Movement, presented at the Annual Meeting of the WPSA in Las Vegas, Nevada.

    • Presentations

      Presenter, “Conjuring Justice: Understanding Hoodoo and the Law,” Annual Meeting of the Southern Political Science Association, New Orleans, Louisiana, January 11-13, 2012.

      Presenter, “From Stigma to Strategy: Calculated Identity Positioning and Black Women Activists,” Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Seattle, Washington,
      September 1-4, 2011.

      Presenter, “From Stigma to Strategy: Intersectionality and Articulated Identities,” 2011 Annual Meeting of the Western Political Science Association, San Antonio, Texas, April 21, 2011.

  • Publications
    Books

    The Tie that Binds: Identity and Political Attitudes in the Post-Civil Rights Generation. New York: New York University Press, 1998.

    Journal Articles

    “Obama’s Win in the 2008 Presidential Election in Virginia” with Manley Elliott Banks. Virginia Capitol Connections 15 (Summer 2009): 11.

    Andrea Y. Simpson, Public Hazard, Personal Peril, 18 RICH. J.L. & PUB. INT. 4 (2015).

    Book Chapters

    “Going It Alone: Black Women Activists and Black Organizational Quiescence” in The State of the Discipline: An African-American Perspective, Temple University Press, 2007.

    “Who Hears Their Cry? The Fight for Environmental Justice in Memphis, Tennessee” in The Environmental Justice Reader: Politics, Poetics, and Pedagogy, edited by Joni Adamson, Mei Mei Evans, Kamala Platt, and Rachel Stein, Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2001.