Kira Sanbonmatsu is Associate Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University and Senior Scholar at the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) at the Eagleton Institute of Politics. She received her B.A. from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and her Ph.D. from Harvard University. She was previously Associate Professor of Political Science at The Ohio State University. Her research interests include gender, race/ethnicity, parties, public opinion, and state politics. She served as co-chair of the 2007 Midwest Political Science Association conference. She co-edits the CAWP Series in Gender and American Politics at the University of Michigan Press with Susan J. Carroll.

She is the author of Where Women Run: Gender and Party in the American States (University of Michigan Press, 2006) and Democrats, Republicans, and the Politics of Women's Place (University of Michigan Press, 2002). Her articles have appeared in such journals as American Journal of Political Science, Politics & Gender, and Party Politics.