Rachel Brulé, associate professor of global development policy at Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, has received a prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) Career Grant. The award, worth $628,039 over five years, will support her project, “Dynamics of Women’s Political and Economic Empowerment: An Open Database Project.”

Professor Brulé’s research focuses on comparative politics, with a focus on gender, political economy, and institutions. Her work explores how gender equality is promoted and existing social hierarchies are challenged, particularly in the context of women’s political representation, inheritance rights, and cultural norms. This new NSF-funded project is closely aligned with her expertise, which aims to study the conditions that foster gender equality and the role of women’s solidarity in achieving it.

The project comes at a critical time when many countries, including the United States, are experiencing conflicting trends: increasing opportunities for women resulting from economic growth, alongside growing barriers limiting women’s voice and agency in professional, social, and political contexts.

Brulé’s NSF project will draw on innovative multi-method data generation to document the extent of women’s gendered agency and solidarity across space and time. She plans to develop a theoretical framework to explain global variations in gender equality and to test theories of gendered agency, solidarity, and levels of equality using “as if random” changes in women’s rights and field experiments.

A key element of the project is the creation of an open database project, which will establish a reproducible system for data collection, processing and analysis. This database will focus on four main case studies and will aim to analyse geospatial patterns of gendered agency in relation to rights, resources, networks and power.

The educational aspect of the project is equally important. Brulé will implement a multifaceted program involving students from various disciplines, including social sciences, law, gender studies, and data science, in real-world research experiences.

This award not only recognizes Professor Brulé’s potential as a leader in her field, but also supports her vision of deploying data science to advance understanding of gender equality dynamics. The project’s findings have the potential to inform policies and practices that can improve women’s empowerment and societal well-being in the United States and around the world.

Professor Brulé brings a wealth of experience to this project. Her first book, “Women, Power, and Property: The Paradox of Gender Equality Laws in India,” received the American Political Science Association’s 2021 Luebbert Prize for the best book in comparative politics. Her work has appeared in prestigious journals such as the Journal of Politics and the Journal of Development Economics, and has been featured in major media outlets including the New York Times and the Washington Post.

The NSF Career Award, which began July 1, 2024, and is scheduled to run through June 30, 2029, reflects NSF’s commitment to supporting cutting-edge research that combines intellectual merit with broader societal impacts. It also builds on Brulé’s ongoing work, including her co-founding of the Alliance for Afghan Women’s Economic Empowerment with the U.S. State Department, which Secretary Blinken launched in September 2022.

Rachel Brule is an Associate Professor of Global Development Policy at Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies and a faculty member of the Human Capital Initiative at the Global Development Policy Center. Her research interests include comparative politics, international development, political economy, and gender, with a geographic focus on South Asia. Learn more about Professor Brulé on her faculty profile.

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