Pearl DoweAsa Griggs Candler Professor of Political Science and African American Studies

Dr. Pearl Dowe is the Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Political Science and African American Studies with a joint appointment between the university’s Oxford College and Emory College of Arts and Sciences.  She is also currently the vice provost for faculty affairs at Emory University.  

Dr. Dowe’s most recent research focuses on African American women’s political ambition and public leadership. Her manuscript The Radical Imagination of Black Women: Ambtion, Politics and Power will be published fall 2023 by Oxford University Press. Dr. Dowe's 2020 article ‘Resisting Marginilzation: Black Women's Ambition and Agency’ published in 2020 received the Anna Julia Cooper Best Paper Award from the Association for the Study of Black Women in Politics.  

In addition to this work, Dowe's  published writing includes co-authorship of Remaking the Democratic Party: Lyndon B. Johnson as Native-Son Presidential Candidate (University of Michigan Press: 2016) and editorship of African Americans in Georgia: A Reflection of Politics and Policy Reflection in the New South (Mercer University Press, 2010). She has also published numerous articles and book chapters over the course of her career.  

Dr. Dowe is also a leader in  the field of political science, she has held  leadership roles in national and regional professional associations  and is the co-editor of the National Review of Black Politics.  

Dowe is also from Georgia and graduated from Savannah State University with her B.S., Georgia Southern University with her MA and earned her PhD in political science from Howard University.