Shamira Gelbman has been on the Wabash faculty since 2012. In addition to a wide range of courses on American politics, she has taught freshman tutorials on bodybuilding and food labeling controversies, as well as interdisciplinary courses on the civil rights movement, health, and the political history of Wabash College.
Dr. Gelbman’s research focuses primarily on the role social movements and interest groups play in American politics. Her book, The Civil Rights Lobby: The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and the Second Reconstruction (Temple University Press, 2021), explores how nearly a hundred organizations collaborated to lobby for federal civil rights legislation during the 1950s and 1960s. She is also the co-editor of Youth Activism in America: An Encyclopedia of Ideals in Action (Bloomsbury, 2026) and is developing a new project on women lobbyists during the era of World War II.
A native of Brooklyn, NY, Dr. Gelbman attended the City University of New York’s Hunter College before heading south to the University of Virginia for her graduate degrees. Before coming to Wabash, she taught at Illinois State University for five years. In her free time, she enjoy word games, painting, and road tripping.
Education
Ph.D. in Government, University of Virginia (2008)
M.A. in Government, University of Virginia (2003)
B.A. in Political Science, Hunter College of the City University of New York (2000)
Recent Course Offerings
100+ Years of Woman Suffrage: Women as Voters, Candidates, and Elected Officials
Congressional Elections
Don't Say Cheese: American Food Label Controversies (freshman tutorial)
Election Polling & Public Opinion
Governing Wabash
Introduction to American Politics
Politics of the Civil Rights Movement
Protest & Public Policy
Senior Seminar
Sociology & Politics of Health
Recent Publications
Gelbman, Shamira and Sebastian Karcher, editors. 2026. "Teaching Qualitative Methods in Undergraduate Education," PS: Political Science & Politics 59(2):385-409.
Gentry, Bobbi and Shamira Gelbman, editors. 2026. Youth Activism in America: An Encyclopedia of Ideals in Action. Bloomsbury.
Gelbman, Shamira. 2025. "Washington Representative Careers and the Institutionalization of the Civil Rights Movement," Studies in American Political Development 39:1-13.
Gelbman, Shamira. 2021. The Civil Rights Lobby: The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and the Second Reconstruction. Temple University Press.
Gelbman, Shamira. 2016. “Issue Coverage on Twitter: Evidence from Two 2014 Senate Races,” in Social Media and Politics: A New Way to Participate in the Political Process, Glenn Richardson, ed. ABC-CLIO.
Gelbman, Shamira. 2015. “Interest Groups, Twitter, and Civic Education,” in Civic Education in the Twenty-First Century: A Multidimensional Inquiry, Michael T. Rogers and Donald M. Gooch, eds. Lexington Books, pp. 273-290.
Gelbman, Shamira M. 2011. “A Qualitative Assessment of the Learning Outcomes of Teaching Introductory American Politics in Comparative Perspective,” Journal of Political Science Education 7:4, pp. 359-374.
Gelbman, Shamira M. and Jesse H. Rhodes. 2011. “Ideology Construction, Grassroots Mobilization, and Party Strategy in South Africa and the United States, 1934-1948,” Polity 43:2, pp. 154-178.
Gelbman, Shamira M. 2007. “Race, Inequality, and Liberal Democracy,” Polity 39:2, pp. 259-275.