Claudine Gay


Claudine Gay is a scholar of government and African-American studies as well as a university administrator. She serves as Harvard's Wilbur A. Cowett Professor of Government and of African and African-American Studies, and Edgerley Family Dean of Faculty of Arts and Sciences. She is vice president of the Midwest Political Science Association.
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 Gay is a cousin of writer Roxane Gay.
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, then studied economics at Stanford University, receiving the Anna Laura Myers Prize for best undergraduate thesis in economics. She graduated in 1992. Gay then earned her Ph.D. from Harvard, winning the university's Toppan Prize for best dissertation in political science.

Career

Gay served as assistant professor, then tenured 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. She subsequently move to Harvard University and in July 2015, she became Dean of Social Science at Harvard University. In July 2018, she was promoted to Edgerley Family Dean of Faculty of Arts and Sciences, 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 Midwest Political Science Association.
Since 2017, Gay has also served as a trustee of the Phillips Exeter Academy.

Works