Amy Lerman

Amy Lerman is the Michelle Schwartz Endowed Chair and Professor of Public Policy and Political Science in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley, where she also holds an appointment at the Goldman School of Public Policy. She serves as Executive Director of the Possibility Lab since 2022 and previously as Associate Dean of the Goldman School from 2019 to 2022 and Co-Director of The People Lab from 2019 to 2022. Lerman earned her B.A. in Social Policy and Political Science from New York University’s Gallatin School in 1999, M.A. in Political Science from UC Berkeley in 2003, and Ph.D. in Political Science from UC Berkeley in 2008. Before joining Berkeley in 2013 as Assistant Professor of Public Policy, she was Assistant Professor of Politics and Public Affairs at Princeton University from 2008 to 2013. She has also served as adjunct faculty for Mount Tamalpais College at San Quentin State Prison since 2004.

Her research examines public policy, public opinion, and political behavior, especially as they relate to punishment, criminal justice, and social inequality. Key publications include the books The Modern Prison Paradox: Politics, Punishment, and Social Community (Cambridge University Press, 2013), Arresting Citizenship: The Democratic Consequences of American Crime Control (co-authored with Vesla Weaver, University of Chicago Press, 2014), and Good Enough for Government Work: The Public Reputation Crisis in America (And What We Can Do to Fix It) (University of Chicago Press, 2019). Highly cited articles feature “Political Consequences of the Carceral State” (with Vesla Weaver, American Political Science Review, 2010, 772 citations) and “Policy Uptake as Political Behavior: Evidence from the Affordable Care Act” (with Meredith Sadin and Samuel Trachtman, American Political Science Review, 2017). Lerman has received the 2025 Andrew Carnegie Fellowship, election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2023, American Political Science Association Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award and Gladys M. Kammerer Award in 2020 for Good Enough for Government Work, APSA Urban Politics Section Best Book Award in 2014, National Institute of Justice W.E.B. Du Bois Fellowship (2017-2019), and others. Her work appears in leading journals and media including The New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, CNN, and NPR. She serves on advisory boards such as the Citrin Center for Public Opinion Research and the American National Election Study, co-chaired APSA Working Group on Punishment and Prisons, and consults on prison reform, access to higher education, and law enforcement mental health.

Professional Email: alerman@berkeley.edu