She earned her PhD in 2010 from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Conroy's research focuses on political communication as it serves as persuasion for mass publics, and as communicated by media. Her first book, Masculinity, Media, and the American Presidency (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015) assess the degree to which gendered discourse in presidential politics impacts the electoral fortunes of the men who ran for that office from 2000-2012. Conroy was born and raised in Meridian, Idaho.