Vesla Weaver

Vesla Weaver

E-mail: vmweaver@virginia.edu

Phone: 434-982-2969

Vesla Mae Weaver is an Assistant Professor in the Woodrow Wilson Department of Politics. She received her doctorate from Harvard University in the joint programs of Government and Social Policy. Weaver has written on topics including race and ethnic politics, immigration, social policy, electoral politics, political psychology, American political development, and the politics of inequality. She is currently completing a book manuscript, Frontlash: Race and the Transformation of American Criminal Policy and Politics, which uncovers a connection between the movement for civil rights and the development of punitive criminal justice. The book grows out of her dissertation, winner of the Best Dissertation Award in Race, Ethnicity, and Politics given by the American Political Science Association. Weaver is also working on a collaborative book project on skin color, multiracialism, and immigration and their implications for racial politics (with Professors Jennifer Hochschild and Traci Burch). She is the principle investigator on an experiment through the Time-sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences, which explores how white voters react to black and Latino political candidates of varying skin tones. Her research has been supported by fellowships from the National Science Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Brookings Institution. Weaver has also had several other pursuits, with positions at the Southern Poverty Law Center, Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, and the Democratic National Committee.

View her curriculum vitae.