Rate My Professor Rainbow Murray

Professor Rainbow Murray is Professor of Politics at Queen Mary University of London in the Department of Sociology, Politics and International Relations, a position she has held since 2007. She earned her BA from the University of Manchester, MRes from a London university, and PhD from a London university. Throughout her career, she has undertaken visiting fellowships at the London School of Economics, the Centre for Research on French Politics (CEVIPOF) in Paris, and the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris. Murray serves as Faculty Lead for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at Queen Mary University of London and was the first Senior Diversity Lead from 2014 to 2016. She co-convenes the Political Studies Association's French Politics and Policy group and an international research network on Political Masculinities, and has served on the executive committee of the Political Studies Association.

Her research focuses on political representation, gender and politics, candidate selection, French and comparative politics, political parties, parliaments, and elections. Key areas include the impact of gender quotas on parliamentary representation, substantive representation of men, political masculinities, representation of parents in parliament, and gendered costs of contesting elections. Notable publications include the books Gendered Electoral Financing: Money, Power and Representation in Comparative Perspective (2019, co-edited with Ragnhild Muriaas and Vibeke Wang), Parties, Gender Quotas and Candidate Selection in France (2010), and Cracking the Highest Glass Ceiling: A Global Comparison of Women’s Campaigns for Executive Office (2010, edited). Highly cited articles feature "Quotas for Men: Reframing Gender Quotas as a Means of Improving Representation for All" (American Political Science Review, 2014) and "Second Among Unequals? A Study of Whether France's 'Quota Women' are Up to the Job" (Politics & Gender, 2010). She has edited special issues on gender and political financing (International Political Science Review, 2021) and men and masculinities in politics (Politics & Gender, 2018), as well as co-edited the European Journal of Political Research Political Data Yearbook (2011-2015). Murray is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, received Drapers' Awards for Excellence in Teaching (2010 and 2012), a Leverhulme Research Fellowship (2010), and a €2 million European Research Council Consolidator Grant (2023) for her project on the representation of men in politics.