Valerie Hoekstra joined the ASU faculty in 2002 after teaching at Washington University in St. Louis. She received the MA and PhD from SUNY Stony Brook and her BA from California State University Long Beach.

Her research and teaching interests focus on judicial politics, especially judicial decision making, the effect of Supreme Court decisions on public opinion, state courts and state legislatures, reforms to state judicial systems, public evaluations of judicial nominees, and comparative research on the diversity on high/constitutional courts.

She is currently working on a book manuscript which examines why legislatures create independent judiciaries. The book draws up on changes to the selection, retention and tenure of high court judges in the American states from approximately 1850 to the present. This project has been funded by the National Science Foundation.

She is also working on a project looking at the promotion of women to constitutional and international courts abroad as well as experimental work on how the public evaluates judicial nominees.

She is the author of a Cambridge University Press book, Public Reaction to Supreme Court Decisions (2003) and has authored or co-authored articles in American Political Science Review, the Journal of Politics, Political Research Quarterly, State Politics and Policy Quarterly, and American Politics Research.