In 2007 she was named the Burton Craige Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
[2] Her dissertation was titled The Nature and Sources of Candidate Images: A Social Psychological Approach.
[2] Conover and the political scientist Patrick Miller received extensive news coverage for their study "Red and Blue States of Mind: Partisan Hostility and Voting in the United States", published in Political Research Quarterly in 2015.
[7][8] ScienceDaily summarised the study as finding that "Most partisans -- average Democratic and Republican voters -- act like fans in sports rivalries instead of making political choices based on issues".
[9] In 2007, Conover was made a Burton Craige Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.