[1] Leeds attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, earning a BA in political science in 1991.
[2] Her dissertation, Comprehending Cooperation: Credible Commitments and International Relations, won the 1998 Walter Isard Award from the Peace Science Society for the best dissertation in Peace Science.
[4] Her work has focused on both the design and the effects of military alliances: she studies how governments structure security commitments, what determines whether or not leaders subsequently abide by those commitments, and how that affects military conflicts.
[8] Leeds also won the 2019 Herman Brown Distinguished Scholar Award from Texas Christian University, which recognizes a political scientist for outstanding scholarship and contributions to the discipline.
[9] Work by Leeds has been cited in media outlets including The Washington Post,[10] Vox,[11] and Foreign Affairs.