Bio

Matt Grossmann is Director of the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research and Professor of Political Science at Michigan State University. He oversees a bipartisan candidate training program, orientations for newly elected legislators, regular issue programming for policymakers, and the largest databases of state policy differences and congressional representation. He also aided Michigan’s redistricting commission. He serves as Senior Fellow at the Niskanen Center, a centrist think tank in DC, where he hosts the Science of Politics podcast. He received his undergraduate degree from Claremont McKenna College and his doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley. With his wife Sarah, he owns Hooked, an independent bookstore and café in Lansing with regular community events. He is an author of Asymmetric Politics, Polarized by Degrees, Red State Blues, The Not-So-Special Interests, Artists of the Possible, How Social Science Got Better, and Campaigns & Elections as well as dozens of journal articles. His next book, Policymaking for Realists, will be published in 2027. He has published op-eds in The New York Times and The Washington Post, was a contributor to FiveThirtyEight, and regularly serves as an expert on American state and national politics. His work has been funded by the Kellogg, Joyce, Hewlett, and Russell Sage foundations. He is an Andrew Carnegie fellow and has been a visiting scholar at MIT, Harvard, and Chicago.