Claudine Gay is a political scientist and university administrator. On July 1, 2023 she will become the 30th and first Black President of Harvard University. She serves as Harvard's Wilbur A. Cowett Professor of

Government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...

and of African and African-American Studies, and Edgerley Family Dean of the

Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences The Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) is the largest of the ten faculties that constitute Harvard University. Headquartered principally in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and centered in the historic Harvard Yard, FAS is the only faculty respon ...

. She is vice president of the

Midwest Political Science Association The Midwest Political Science Association (MPSA) is a professional association of political science scholars and students in the United States. It was founded in 1939, and publishes the ''American Journal of Political Science'' in conjunction with ...

. Gay's research addresses American political behavior, including voter turnout and politics of race and identity.

Early life and education

Gay grew up the child of Haitian immigrants to the United States; her parents met in New York as students (her mother studying nursing and her father engineering.) Gay is a cousin of writer

Roxane Gay Roxane Gay (born October 15, 1974) is an American writer, professor, editor, and social commentator. Gay is the author of ''The New York Times'' best-selling essay collection '' Bad Feminist'' (2014), as well as the short story collection ''Ayit ...

. Gay spent much of her childhood first in New York, then in Saudi Arabia where her father worked for U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Her mother was a registered nurse. Gay attended

Phillips Exeter Academy (not for oneself) la, Finis Origine Pendet (The End Depends Upon the Beginning) gr, Χάριτι Θεοῦ (By the Grace of God) , location = 20 Main Street , city = Exeter, New Hampshire , zipcode ...

, then studied economics at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

, receiving the Anna Laura Myers Prize for best undergraduate thesis in economics. She graduated in 1992. Gay then earned her Ph.D. (1998) from

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

, winning the university's Toppan Prize for best dissertation in

political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...

Career

Gay served as assistant professor, then associate professor in Stanford's Department of Political Science from 2000 to 2006. In the 2003-2004 academic year, Gay was a fellow at the

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences The Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) is an interdisciplinary research lab at Stanford University that offers a residential postdoctoral fellowship program for scientists and scholars studying "the five core social a ...

. She subsequently moved to Harvard University and in July 2015, she became Dean of Social Science at Harvard University. In July 2018, she was named the Edgerley Family Dean of the

, to assume the post August 15. Gay's research addresses American political behavior, politics of race and identity, and voter turnout, among other topics. She is vice president of the

. Since 2017, Gay has also served as a trustee of Phillips Exeter Academy. On December 15, 2022, Harvard announced that Gay had been selected as the 30th president of Harvard University, with her term beginning on July 1, 2023. She will be Harvard’s first black president.

Works

* 1998, with Katherine Tate. “Doubly Bound: The Impact of Gender and Race on the Politics of Black Women”. ''Political Psychology'' 19 (1). * 2001. “The Effect of Black Congressional Representation on Political Participation”. ''

American Political Science Review The ''American Political Science Review'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering all areas of political science. It is an official journal of the American Political Science Association and is published on their behalf by Cambridg ...

'' 95 (3). * 2001. ''The Effect of Minority Districts and Minority Representation on Political Participation in California.'' San Francisco:

Public Policy Institute of California The Public Policy Institute of California is an independent, non-profit research institution. Based in San Francisco, California, the institute was established in 1994 by Bill Hewlett, of Hewlett-Packard, Roger Heyns, and Arjay Miller, with a $7 ...

. * 2002. “Spirals of Trust? The Effect of Descriptive Representation on the Relationship Between Citizens and Their Government”. ''

American Journal of Political Science The ''American Journal of Political Science'' is a journal published by the Midwest Political Science Association. It was formerly known as the ''Midwest Journal of Political Science''. According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'', the journal ...

'' 46 (4). * 2004. “Putting Race in Context: Identifying the Environmental Determinants of Black Racial Attitudes”. ''American Political Science Review'' 98 (4). * 2006. “Seeing Difference: The Effect of Economic Disparity on Black Attitudes Toward Latinos”. ''American Journal of Political Science'' 50 (4) : 997. * 2007. “Legislating Without Constraints: The Effect of Minority Districting on Legislators' Responsiveness to Constituency Preferences”. ''

The Journal of Politics ''The Journal of Politics'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal of political science established in 1939 and published quarterly (February, May, August and November) by University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Southern Political Science Assoc ...

'' 69 (2) : 456. * 2012. “Moving to Opportunity: The Political Effects of a Housing Mobility Experiment”. ''

Urban Affairs Review ''Urban Affairs Review'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal that covers the field of urban studies, including urban policy, urban economic development and residential and community development. The journal's editors-in-chief are Phil Ashton (Univ ...

'' 48 (2) : 147-179. * 2013, ed. with Jacqueline Chattopadhyay,

Jennifer Hochschild Jennifer Lucy Hochschild (born September 17, 1950) is a political scientist. She serves as the Henry LaBarre Jayne Professor of Government, Professor of African and African American Studies and Harvard College Professor at Harvard University. Sh ...

, Michael Jones-Correa. ''Outsiders No More? Models of Immigrant Political Incorporation'' (

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, 2013). * 2014. “Knowledge Matters: Policy Cross-pressures and Black Partisanship”. ''

Political Behavior Theories of political behavior, as an aspect of political science, attempt to quantify and explain the influences that define a person's political views, ideology, and levels of political participation. Political behavior is the subset of hu ...

'' 36 : 99-124.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gay, Claudine Living people Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Stanford University alumni Harvard University faculty American women political scientists American political scientists Black studies scholars Phillips Exeter Academy alumni Harvard University administrators American people of Haitian descent African-American academics American women academics American academic administrators African-American educators Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century African-American people 21st-century African-American women