Regina Lawrence holds the Jesse H. Jones Centennial Chair in the School of Journalism. She earned a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Washington in 1997.  Dr. Lawrence is the author of The Politics of Force: Media and the Construction of Police Brutality (University of California Press, 2000) and co-author (with W. Lance Bennett and Steven Livingston) of When the Press Fails: Political Power and the News Media from Iraq to Katrina (University of Chicago Press, 2007).  Her latest book, Hillary Clinton’s Run for the White House: Media, Gender Strategy, and Campaign Politics (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2009, co-authored with Melody Rose), won an honorable mention Carrie Chapman Catt Prize for Research on Women and Politics from the Catt Center for Women & Politics at Iowa State University.

Dr. Lawrence has written numerous articles analyzing media coverage of high profile news events and policy issues, including the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, shootings in public schools, the obesity epidemic, welfare reform, and television coverage of the September 11^th terrorist attack.  Articles she has authored and co-authored have appeared in Journal of Communication, Political Communication, Social Science Quarterly, and the Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics. Dr. Lawrence was a research fellow at the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University (2003). She is currently chair of the Political Communication section of the American Political Science Association