Dr. Mona Shadia

Education:

California State University, Fullerton, Bachelor of Arts 
California State University, Fullerton, Master of Arts
Claremont Graduate University, Ph.D. 

Dr. Shadia joined the Chapman political science faculty as a lecturer in 2020 while working on her Ph.D. at Claremont Graduate University. Her teaching and research interests include gender politics, comparative politics, racial and ethnic politics, American foreign policy, and peace and conflict in the Middle East. In 2025, she earned her Ph.D. in International Politics and Political Science. Her research explores areas of the law that hinder women’s autonomy and prevent them from realizing the political power needed to achieve equality – and potentially usher in democratic transitions. She created the Women’s Legal Rights Index (WLRI) to measure women’s autonomy and political power through the aggregation and scaling of a set of legal rights and applied it to 18 countries. Her first academic article was published in the Women's Studies journal in January 2026. Dr. Shadia is also a lecturer at California State University, Long Beach, and several community colleges. She is currently writing an Open Education Resources textbook chapter on the history of the women's political movement in the United States. Before turning to academia, Dr. Shadia was an award-winning newspaper journalist for nearly a decade, covering local and regional politics in Southern California.