Susanne Schwarz is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Swarthmore College. Her research and teaching interests span the field of American Politics, with a specific focus on American political development, the U.S. historical political economy, and public policy research.

Professor Schwarz's book project investigates how extractive carceral institutions helped consolidate state public finance in the postbellum American South. Other parts of her ongoing research explore the impact of political representation on incarceration during Reconstruction, the politics of black education in the American South in the pre-Civil Rights era, and the political dynamics of remembrance culture in the United States. Her work has been published in outlets such as the Journal of Politics and Political Behavior.

At Swarthmore, Professor Schwarz is leading the Historical Political Economy (HPE) Research Lab (www.hpe-lab.com), which brings together faculty and students from different institutions to conduct collaborative research on the Historical Political Economy of the United States. The lab's mission is to produce high-quality social science research that combines novel data collection with in-depth historical research approaches. 

Professor Schwarz received her Ph.D. from the Department of Politics at Princeton University and her Masters in Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where she was a McCloy Fellow. She earned her B.A. in Political Science from Freie Universität in Berlin.