While most of the faculty starts their bios with their hometowns, Professor Atchison doesn't have one; as a member of an Army family, she moved 14 times before the age of 21.  She attended college at Jacksonville State University in Alabama; she then earned an MA in International Affairs at Florida State.  She spent ten years in Corporate America as a corporate training manager and IT project manager.  She decided to stop contributing to someone else’s bottom line, and joined the graduate program in Political Science at the University of Tennessee in 2006.  She earned a PhD in political Science with concentrations in Comparative Politics and Public Policy.  Dr. Atchison teaches courses in Comparative Politics and International Relations.  Her current research focuses on gender and politics in Advanced Industrial Democracies.