Henry E. Brady


Henry E. Brady is an American political scientist specializing in methodology and its application in a diverse array of political fields. He is Dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy at University of California, Berkeley and holds the Class of 1941 Monroe Deutsch Professor of Political Science and Public Policy. He was elected President of the American Political Science Association, 2009–2010, giving a presidential address entitled "The Art of Political Science: Spatial Diagrams as Iconic and Revelatory." He has published academic works on diverse topics, co-authoring with colleagues at a variety of institutions and ranks, as well as many solo authored works. His principal areas of research are on political behavior in the United States, Canada, and the former Soviet Union, public policy and methodological work on scaling and dimensional analysis. When he became President of the American Political Science Association, a number of his colleagues and co-authors contributed to his presidential biography entitled "Henry Brady, Big Scientist," discussing his work and the fields to which he has contributed and has also shaped.

Education and career

Brady attended Harvey Mudd College of the Claremont Colleges, graduating in 1969 with B.S. in mathematics and physics. He attended Union Theological Seminary for a year, assisted by a fellowship, then entered the doctoral program at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He completed doctorates in both Economics and Political Science in 1980. He taught at University of California, Berkeley; Harvard University; University of Chicago; and returned to Berkeley in 1990.
At Berkeley, he has directed the Survey Research Center, January 1, 1999 to July 31, 2009. The Survey Research Center conducted in-person, telephone, and self-administered surveys in the United States, and California in particular. Earlier he directed the University of California Data Archive and Technical Assistance from 1992 to 2009, and now serves on its governing board. From 1988–1990, he was director of the University of Chicago, Center for the Study of Politics and Society, National Opinion Research Center. He serves on the editorial boards of a number of major journals in the field, including American Journal of Political Science, Evaluation Review, American Political Science Review, and Political Analysis.
From 2000 to 2008, Brady worked to improve voting systems in the U.S. through his writing and work on legal cases. His work on voting systems includes involvement with the 2000 presidential election in Florida, Butterfly Ballot Case, and the 2003 efforts to get rid of punch card ballots, where he worked with the American Civil Liberties Union in California and Illinois to challenge their use. In the 2003 California gubernatorial recall election Brady’s research on the punch card ballot was cited in the federal case seeking to postpone the special state election. Brady published an account of his role in the punch card ballot case.

Honors and Awards

Books