Christina L. Boyd

Christina L. Boyd is a Professor in the School of Law and Department of Political Science at Washington University in St. Louis. She teaches courses at WashU on judicial behavior, civil procedure, and race, gender, and the law. Her research focuses on judicial behavior, empirical legal studies, judicial diversity, trial courts and litigation, and the intersection of courts and the bureaucracy in American politics.

Professor Boyd’s research on the federal trial courts, the federal judiciary, and Social Security Administration disability litigation have been funded by the National Science Foundation. She has published two books, Supreme Bias: Gender and Race in U.S. Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings (Stanford University Press, 2023; with Collins and Ringhand) and The Politics of Federal Prosecution (Oxford University Press, 2021; with Nelson, Ostrander, and Boldt), and over forty articles and chapters in outlets that include American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization, Journal of Legal Studies, Law & Society Review, Northwestern University Law Review, Vanderbilt Law Review, and Political Research Quarterly.

Boyd’s research has been discussed in media outlets including the New York Times, Washington Post, FiveThirtyEight, Christian Science Monitor, Newsweek, and National Public Radio and cited and discussed by the U.S. Supreme Court. Her book, Supreme Bias, was honored in 2024 with the C. Herman Pritchett Book Award as the best book published in the previous calendar year by the American Political Science Association’s Law and Courts Section. Boyd was the 2024 recipient of the University of Georgia’s William A. Owens Creative Research Award, recognizing the international reach of her scholarship on judicial diversity. In 2023, Boyd’s article, “How the Trump Administration’s Quota Policy Transformed Immigration Judging” (American Political Science Review, with Blasingame, Carlos, and Ornstein), was the recipient of the Midwest Political Science Association Evan Ringquist and American Political Science Association Law & Courts Section Best Conference Paper awards. In 2022, Boyd’s American Journal of Political Science article on the decision making of female judges, “Untangling the Causal Effects of Sex on Judging” (co-authored with Epstein and Martin), was awarded the American Political Science Association Law & Courts Section Lasting Contribution Award.  Professor Boyd is also an award-winning teacher and mentor.