Carolyn Barnett

Biography

Carolyn Barnett is an assistant professor in the School of Government and Public Policy and School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies at the University of Arizona. She received her Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton University in 2022. Carolyn's research focuses on how public opinion, social norms, and political behavior in the Middle East and North Africa evolve in response to women's rights reforms and other social policies. Her work has appeared in the Journal of Politics, American Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, Political Science Research & Methods, PS: Political Science and Politics, Middle East Law and Governance, and Hawwa. Carolyn has held Fulbright scholarships to Morocco for research and to Egypt for language study through the Center for Arabic Study Abroad (CASA) program. She has also held a Marshall Scholarship to the UK, where she earned an M.Sc. in Middle East Politics and M.A. in Islamic Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London. Carolyn also earned a B.S.F.S. from Georgetown University and worked as a research fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies from 2012-2015.

Degrees

• Ph.D. Politics
• Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, United States
• Perceived Norms and the Politics of Women's Rights in Morocco
• M.A. Politics
• Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, United States
• M.S. Middle East Politics
• School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, London, United Kingdom
• Bourguiba, Bouazizi, and the Moment Between Myths: Heroes and Political Identity in Post-Revolutionary Tunisia
• M.A. Islamic Studies
• School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, London, United Kingdom
• ‘Ā’isha’s Corrections of the Companions: Ḥadīth Criticism Methodology in Theory & Practice
• Certificate Arabic Language Study
• American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt
• Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service Culture and Politics
• School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. (District of Columbia), United States

Awards

• Best Dissertation Award
• APSA Middle East and North African Politics Section, Fall 2023
• Fellow (Elected)
• Association for Analytic Learning on Islam and Muslim Societies (AALIMS), Spring 2023
• Honorable Mention, Best Fieldwork Award
• APSA Democracy & Autocracy Section, Fall 2022 (Award Finalist)
• Non-Resident Fellow
• Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University, Fall 2022