Professor Gadarian specializes in American politics, political psychology, political communication, public opinion and experimental methods. Her interests lie in American politics, political psychology, political communication, public opinion, experimental methods.

Gadarian was recently named a 2021 Carnegie Fellow for her quantitative research during the pandemic. Her project, “Pandemic Politics: How COVID-19 Revealed the Depths of Partisan Polarization,” will investigate the long-term impacts of the pandemic on health behaviors and evaluations of government performance.

She is the author of Ìýand was awarded 2016 APSA Robert E. Lane Award for best book in political psychology. The book explores how anxiety over policy issues like immigration, public health, terrorism, and climate change affects people.