Today, Erica Chenoweth is awarded the Karl Deutsch Award by the International Studies Association. The award was established in 1981 to recognize scholars in IR under age 40, or within ten years of defending their dissertation, and is presented annually to a scholar who is judged to have made (through a body of publications) the most significant contribution to the study of International Relations and Peace Research.

Chenoweth's research focuses on political violence, strategic nonviolent resistance, and terrorism. She is assistant professor at the University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of International Studies and directs the school’s program on Terrorism and Insurgency Research. She is also Associate Senior Researcher at PRIO, where she is involved in the research project Effective Non-Violence? Resistance Strategies and Political Outcomes. in 2013, she was celebrated as one of the 100 leading global thinkers by Foreign Policy.