For the past seven years, political scientist Alice Kang has tracked when and how women broke the glass ceiling to be appointed to the highest courts in democratic countries. 

Kang teamed with researchers from Texas A&M and Arizona State to research and build a database of judicial appointments of women to courts equivalent to the U.S. Supreme Court in both developing and stable democracies. 

In a recently published study, Kang and her co-authors examined 159 courts in 124 countries over four decades.