Matthew Levendusky is currently the Penny and Robert A. Fox Director of the Fels Institute of Government, Professor of Political Science, and (by courtesy) Professor in the Annenberg School for Communication. He is also Distinguished Fellow in the Institutions of Democracy at the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.
He was previously graduate group chairperson (2013-2018), associate professor (2013-2018), and assistant professor of Political Science at Penn (2007-2013), and a postdoctoral research associate at the Center for the Study of American Politics at Yale University (2006-2007). He obtained his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 2006, and his BA (with highest honors) from The Pennsylvania State University in 2001. Since 2014, he has served as a decision desk analyst for NBC News.
He is the author of The Partisan Sort (University of Chicago Press, 2009) and How Partisan Media Polarize America (University of Chicago Press, 2013). Beginning with the 15th edition, he is a co-author of American Government: Institutions and Policies (Cengage Learning; with James Q. Wilson, John J. DiIulio, Jr., and Meena Bose) and beginning with the 13th edition, he is a co-author of American Government: Institutions and Policies, Brief Edition (Cengage Learning; with James Q. Wilson, John J. DiIulio, Jr., and Meena Bose). His work has also appeared in the American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, Public Opinion Quarterly, and a variety of other outlets in political science. His research focuses on understanding how institutions and elites influence the political behavior of ordinary citizens, including studies of mass polarization, the effects of partisan media, and various other topics. He is often quoted in a variety of media outlets both nationally and internationally, including the Boston Globe, USA Today, CNN, and many others.
His work has been honored with a number of awards, including the 2011 Jewell-Lowenberg Award (for the best article published in Legislative Studies Quarterly), the 2013 best paper award from the Journal of Politics, the 2014 Goldsmith Book Prize from Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center (for How Partisan Media Polarize America), and the 2016 Erik Erikson Early Career Award from the International Society of Political Psychology.
