Rate My Professor Jennifer Leigh Disney

Dr. Jennifer Leigh Disney is Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science, Philosophy, Religion & Legal Studies at Winthrop University, where she also serves as Director of the Model United Nations Program and Director of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program. She completed her Ph.D. with distinction in 2002 at The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York (CUNY), along with M.A. and M.Phil. degrees from the same institution, and earned her B.A. from Western Maryland College. Disney served as the founding director of the Office of Nationally Competitive Awards at Winthrop from 2006 to 2012. Her dissertation, titled "The Theories and Practices of Women’s Organizing: Marxism, Feminism, Democratization, and Civil Society in Mozambique and Nicaragua," received the American Political Science Association (APSA) Women and Politics Best Dissertation Award in 2003. A paper based on two chapters of the dissertation was awarded the Christian Bay Award for the Best New Political Science Paper at APSA that same year. She authored the book Women’s Activism and Feminist Agency in Mozambique and Nicaragua, published by Temple University Press in hardback in 2008 and paperback in 2010.

Disney’s areas of teaching, research, and scholarship encompass comparative politics and feminist theory, with specific focus on development and underdevelopment, intersectional feminisms, and global women’s movements. She teaches courses including Comparative Politics, Model UN, African Politics, Latin American Politics, Women and Global Politics, International Political Economy, Social Movement Politics and Political Protest, Political Science Capstone, and Women’s and Gender Studies. From 2014 to 2018, she co-edited New Political Science: A Journal of Politics and Culture, the official journal of the Caucus for a New Political Science. At Winthrop, she has received the 2006 Faculty Service-Learning Award, 2007 Outstanding Junior Professor Award, 2008 Student Life Award, 2014 DSU “Make the World A Better Place Award,” 2024 Lynn Harand College of Arts & Sciences Advising Award, and the Gale N. DiGiorgio Woman of Distinction Award in 2017 and 2024. In 2016, her alma maters honored her with the Professional Alumni Achievement Award from McDaniel College and the Distinguished Alumni Award from CUNY’s Ph.D. Program in Political Science.