Catherine Rudder

Catherine E. Rudder joined the faculty of the Schar School of Policy and Government in 2001 after having held the position as the executive director of the American Political Science Association. After serving as associate dean for academic affairs from 2004 to 2008, she was the director of the Master’s in Public Policy program.

For 20 years, Rudder served the APSA, the world’s largest professional organization for the study of politics, where she strengthened both the organization and the political science discipline. She joined the APSA staff in 1981 as assistant director, with responsibilities as editor of PS: Political Science & Politics and director of the Congressional Fellowship Program. She was named executive director in 1987. Previously she served as chief of staff to former Representative Wyche Fowler, Jr. of Georgia. In 1974-75, she was an APSA Congressional Fellow.

Rudder has served on a number of boards, including the National Humanities Alliance, where she was president in 2000-01, Consortium of Social Science Associations, Dirksen Congressional Center, Carter Center, and Emory University where she has served as secretary of the board and as a member of the Executive, Academic Affairs (member and chair), and Nominations Committees. She has published a number of articles on congressional reform and specifically on tax policy making in the U.S. She was one of the two scholars in the country commissioned to write and present a paper for the Bicentennial Symposium of the Committee on Ways and Means.

She was selected to be a public policy fellow at the Hoover Institution for 1990-91, and was awarded a Robert Bosch Public Policy Fellowship at the American Academy in Berlin in 1999. She has been a visiting scholar at The George Washington University.

Rudder completed a five-year term in 1998 as the political science book reviewer for Phi Beta Kappa’s The Key Reporter and currently serves on Phi Beta Kappa’s Committee on the Visiting Scholar Program.

Areas of Research

• American Government and Politics
• Federal Government (U.S.)
• Governance
• Nonprofit Institutions
• Regulation
• Tax Policy Making

View CV