LaFleur Stephens is a scholar of American politics, whose research interests include public opinion, campaigns and elections, and racial attitudes. Her book, Race to the Bottom: How Racial Appeals Work in American Politics was published by University of Chicago Press in 2020.  She is a recipient of a National Science Foundation’s Time-Sharing in Experimental Social Sciences Research Grant, as well as a grant from the Center for the Study of Public Policy in Diverse Societies. Her dissertation, “The Effectiveness of Implicit and Explicit Racial Appeals in a ‘Post-racial’ America” was awarded the 2014 Best Dissertation Award in Race and Ethnic Politics from the American Political Science Association.   Dr. Stephens is co-author of “African Americans and the Presidential Nomination Process,” published in William Mayer’s The Making of the Presidential Candidates 2008. Prior to joining the Politics Department at Princeton, she was a visiting scholar in the Political Science Department at MIT.