Welcome! I am currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Washington University in St. Louis. I am also a Faculty Affiliate at the Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions and the Stanford Center for Human and Planetary Health, and a Fellow at the Governance and Local Development Institute. Previously, I held a National Fellowship at the Hoover Institution (2021–2022) and served as the Lead for the China Energy Program at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability (2022–2025).
My research examines how institutions and incentives shape climate and environmental action in both developing countries—especially China—and the United States. More broadly, my work engages core questions in public policy and governance. Methodologically, I integrate theoretical frameworks and empirical strategies from political science, public policy, and environmental science to produce empirically grounded, policy-relevant research.
My first book, The Political Regulation Wave: A Case of How Local Incentives Systematically Shape Air Quality in China (Cambridge University Press, 2022), has received major association awards, including the 2023 International Public Policy Association Early Career Research Award, the 2020 American Political Science Association Harold D. Lasswell Award, and the 2019 Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management Ph.D. Dissertation Award. It also received the 2017 American Political Science Association Paul A. Sabatier Award and the 2018 Southern Political Science Association Malcolm Jewell Award. My second book, Compliance with Public Policy, is under contract with Cambridge University Press as part of the Elements Series in Public Policy.
My research has been published in leading journals, including the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Policy Studies Journal, and journals within the Nature Portfolio, and has received the 2025 American Political Science Association Evan Ringquist Award. I have authored invited review articles for the Annual Review of Political Science and Oxford Bibliographies. The 2025 Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management World Citizen Prize in Environmental Performance recognized three core concepts from my empirical research: the political regulation wave, social competition, and regularized campaigns.
I hold a joint degree from Stanford University, where I was the first to earn an M.S. in civil and environmental engineering alongside a Ph.D. in political science, after graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Swarthmore College.
You can find me on X (@svictoriashen) and Bluesky (@svshen.bsky.social). If you are interested in working with me as a Ph.D. student, please consult the Ph.D. Admissions page. For pre-doctoral opportunities, please visit the RA Opportunities page.
In spring 2026, I am offering two courses: a Ph.D.-level seminar, POLSCI 5151, “China’s Environmental and Climate Governance,” and an undergraduate seminar, ENST 4005-02, “The Politics of Climate Adaptation.”
Recent Updates
12/2025: Interview with the Governance and Local Development Institute is published.
11/2025: Receives the 2025 World Citizen Prize in Environmental Performance from the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management for “research that assesses pathways to achieve measurable but as-yet unrealized gains in overall environmental performance.”
Also featured in Washington University’s newspaper, The Record.
11/2025: Policy brief, “Incorporating Citizens’ Voices into Climate Change Adaptation Plans: Lessons from China,” is published by the Governance and Local Development Institute.
10/2025: Policy brief, “Regularized Campaigns: Solving Principal-Agent Problems and Sustaining Compliance,” is published by the Governance and Local Development Institute.
09/2025: Peer-reviewed journal article, “Social competition drives collective action to reduce informal waste burning in Uganda,” receives the Evan Ringquist Best Paper Award from the American Political Science Association for “the best science, technology, and environmental politics paper published in a relevant journal” in 2023 or 2024.
09/2025: Peer-reviewed journal article, “The 2021 Henan flood increased citizen demand for government-led climate change adaptation in China,” is published in Nature Portfolio’s Communications Earth & Environment.
07/2025: Quoted in “‘Keeping us hooked on fossil fuels’: how can we negotiate with autocracies on the climate crisis?” The Guardian. July 18, 2025.
07/2025: Peer-reviewed journal article, “Regularized Campaigns as a New Institution for Effective Governance,” is published in Policy Studies Journal.
04/2025: Peer-reviewed journal article, “Governing policy experiments in Chinese cities: Lessons on effective climate mitigation,” is published in Policy Studies Journal.
11/2024: Peer-reviewed journal article, “Can Autocracy Handle Climate Change?,” is published in PS: Political Science & Politics.
10/2024: Peer-reviewed journal article, “Political will as a source of policy innovation,” is published in Policy Studies Journal.
Older Updates05/2024: Peer-reviewed journal article, “Social competition drives collective action to reduce informal waste burning in Uganda,” is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. View the associated VoxDev article. View AirQo’s coverage in this blog post.
06/2023: Receives the Early Career Research Award from the International Public Policy Association, given biennially to “a scholar who, within seven years of completing the PhD, has a record of single-authored publications that represents a major theoretical, methodological, and/or empirical contribution to the field of Public Policy and/or Public Administration.”
10/2022: Paperback version, The Political Regulation Wave: A Case of How Local Incentives Systematically Shape Air Quality in China, is published by Cambridge University Press. Watch the recorded livestream of book presentation and discussion here.
04/2022: Op-ed, “Next steps in US-China climate cooperation,” is published in The Hill.
03/2022: Book, The Political Regulation Wave: A Case of How Local Incentives Systematically Shape Air Quality in China, is published by Cambridge University Press.
12/2021: Report, “Accelerating Decarbonization in China and the United States and Promoting Bilateral Collaboration on Climate Change,” is published by Stanford University Precourt Institute for Energy. View press release.
11/2021: Editor-invited journal article, “Deregulation Is Not the Enemy: It Can Be Good for the Economy—and the Environment Too,” is published in the Breakthrough Journal (commissioned by the Breakthrough Institute).
05/2020: Peer-reviewed journal article, “Environmental Justice in India: Incidence of Air Pollution from Coal-Fired Power Plants,” is published in Ecological Economics.