BIO

Ken Kollman earned his BA from the University of Notre Dame, and received his MS in Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences and his PhD in Political Science from Northwestern University. Now, Dr. Kollman is the Frederick G. L. Huetwell Professor, a title given to outstanding faculty in the social sciences and humanities in the U-M College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, and Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan. He is also Director and Research Professor at the Center for Political Studies (Institute for Social Research) at the university.

Dr. Kollman's research focuses on political parties and organizations, elections, lobbying, federal systems, formal modeling, complexity theory, American politics, and comparative politics. His recent book, Perils of Centralization, published by Cambridge University Press, includes research on the European Union, the Roman Catholic Church, General Motors Corporation, and the United States government. He is completing a book (with John Jackson) on how and why voters' partisan loyalties change.

Throughout his career he has contributed in diverse fields: computational social science, comparative and American politics, European Union studies, comparative federalism, and comparative political parties and elections. His popular American government textbook with W.W. Norton is now in its third edition, and the New York Times and Washington Post have published his essays. He created and administered a new major and minor in International Studies through the University of Michigan School of Literature, Science, and the Arts, which has since grown into one of the largest majors at the university. He also co-founded and is co- principal investigator of the Constituency-Level Election Archive (CLEA), the world's largest repository of elections results data.

His recent book, Perils of Centralization, published by Cambridge University Press, includes research on the European Union, the Roman Catholic Church, General Motors Corporation, and the United States government.