Rogers Smith


Rogers Smith is an American political scientist and author noted for his research and writing on American constitutional and political development and political thought, with a focus on issues of citizenship and racial, gender, and class inequalities.
Born in Spartanburg, South Carolina and raised in Springfield, Illinois, Smith graduated with a B.A. in political science from James Madison College, Michigan State University in 1974, including study abroad at the University of Kent in England. He attended graduate school at Harvard University, completing his M.A. in 1978 and his PhD degree in government in 1980. Smith taught at Yale University from 1980 to 2001, when he moved to the University of Pennsylvania, where he is the Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Political Science.
Smith's writings have received numerous awards. Civic Ideals was a finalist for the 1998 Pulitzer Prize in history, and won several awards from the American Political Science Association, the Organization of American Historians, and the Social Science History Association.
Smith chaired the Penn Program on Democracy, Citizenship, and Constitutionalism, now the Andrea Mitchell Center for the Study of Democracy, from 2006 to 2017 and he was Associate Dean for the Social Sciences in the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania from 2014 to 2018. He also co-founded the Teachers Institute of Philadelphia in 2006 and co-chaired its Advisory Council until 2018. He was president of the Politics and History section of American Political Science Association for 2001–2002 and served on the APSA Council in 2005 and 2006. He was Vice President of the American Political Science Association in 2008–2009 and co-president of the Migration and Citizenship section of APSA from 2013 to 2015. Smith was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004; a Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science in 2011; and a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2016. He served as President of the American Political Science Association in 2018–2019.

Selected publications