Leah Rosenstiel

Leah Rosenstiel is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Vanderbilt University, affiliated with the College of Arts and Science. Her research focuses on political institutions and public policy, particularly the U.S. Congress and American federalism, examining how political dynamics influence federal funding distribution and government assistance programs.

She received a Joint Ph.D. in Politics and Social Policy from Princeton University in 2021 and a B.A. in Political Science from Carleton College in 2014. Prior to graduate studies, she worked as a research assistant on K-12 education policy at the Congressional Research Service.

Her research explores how congressional rules and political incentives shape federal grant programs. She employs rigorous empirical methods, including difference-in-differences designs and original datasets on grant reauthorizations and appropriations. Her work reveals that Senate committee chairs disproportionately benefit their states, with spillover effects to demographically similar states, while House committees show less influence. She also investigates how unorthodox legislative processes affect committee power and demonstrates that appropriations data are more reliable than spending data for studying political influence.

Her publications appear in leading journals such as the American Political Science Review, Journal of Politics, and Legislative Studies Quarterly. She is completing a book titled Politics by Formula: How Congressional Policymaking Creates Disparities, forthcoming in 2026 with the University of Chicago Press.

She teaches undergraduate courses including PSCI 3244: The Legislative Process, PSCI 2256: Politics of Public Policy, and PSCI 3893: Congress, the President, and Public Schools.

She has collaborated on research involving federal budget measurement and the impact of legislative procedures on policy outcomes. Her work contributes significantly to understanding distributive politics, federalism, and the real-world consequences of institutional design in Congress.