Gary King (born December 8, 1958) is an American

political scientist Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and Power (social and political), power, and the analysis of political activities, political philosophy, political thought, polit ...

and

quantitative Quantitative may refer to: * Quantitative research, scientific investigation of quantitative properties * Quantitative analysis (disambiguation) * Quantitative verse, a metrical system in poetry * Statistics, also known as quantitative analysis ...

methodologist. He is the Albert J. Weatherhead III

University Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a 'person who professes'. Professors ...

and Director for the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

. King and his research group develop and apply empirical methods in many areas of social science research, focusing on innovations that span the range from statistical theory to practical application.

Biography

In 1980, King graduated ''

summa cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sout ...

'' with a

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

degree in political science from the

State University of New York at New Paltz The State University of New York at New Paltz (SUNY New Paltz or New Paltz) is a public university in New Paltz, New York. It traces its origins to the New Paltz Classical School, a secondary institution founded in 1828 and reorganized as an ...

. In 1981 he earned a

Master of Arts A Master of Arts ( or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA or AM) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Those admitted to the degree have ...

degree and in 1984 a

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of Postgraduate education, graduate study and original resear ...

degree in political science at the

University of Wisconsin–Madison The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved st ...

in Madison. King's career in

academia An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the go ...

began in 1984, when he became an

assistant professor Assistant professor is an academic rank just below the rank of an associate professor used in universities or colleges, mainly in the United States, Canada, Japan, and South Korea. Overview This position is generally taken after earning a doct ...

in the Department of Politics at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

. He joined the faculty of Harvard's Department of Government in 1987 and has taught there since. He has also been a visiting fellow at

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

. To date, he has authored or coauthored eight books (six published and one forthcoming) and more than 175 journal articles and book chapters, and has won more than 55 prizes and awards for his work. King is one of 25 professors with "Harvard's most distinguished faculty title". He is the step-brother of the sociologist

Mitchell Duneier Mitchell Duneier is an American sociologist and ethnographer. He is currently Maurice P. During Professor and department chair of Sociology at Princeton University and has also served as a regular Visiting Distinguished Professor of Sociology at ...

Business

King co-founded the

data analytics Analytics is the systematic computational analysis of data or statistics. It is used for the discovery, interpretation, and communication of meaningful patterns in data, which also falls under and directly relates to the umbrella term, data sci ...

companies Crimson Hexagon and Learning Catalytics and the educational technology companie
Perusall
an
OpenScholar
Crimson Hexagon and its nearest competitor merged in 2018; the new company is calle
Brandwatch
Learning Catalytics was acquired by Pearson in April 2013.

Honors

* Fellow, Guggenheim Foundation, 1994-5 * Fellow,

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...

, 1998 * Fellow,

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a United States–based international nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsib ...

, 2004 * Fellow,

American Academy of Political and Social Science The American Academy of Political and Social Science (AAPSS) was founded in 1889 to promote progress in the social sciences. Sparked by Professor Edmund J. James and drawing from members of the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, Swarthmor ...

2004 * Fellow, Society for Political Methodology, 2008 (Gosnell Prize from the Society in 1997 and 1999)The Society for Political Methodology
. * Fellow,

American Statistical Association The American Statistical Association (ASA) is the main professional organization for statisticians and related professionals in the United States. It was founded in Boston, Massachusetts, on November 27, 1839, and is the second-oldest continuous ...

2009 * Fellow,

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

, 2010 * Fellow, National Academy of Social Insurance, 2014

Selected publications

*''Demographic Forecasting'' (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008), with Federico Girosi.
"How Censorship in China Allows Government Criticism but Silences Collective Expression"
''American Political Science Review'', Vol. 107, No. 2, pp. 1–18. With Jennifer Pan and Margaret E. Roberts. *''Ecological Inference: New Methodological Strategies'' (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), edited with Ori Rosen and Martin A. Tanner. *''A Solution to the Ecological Inference Problem: Reconstructing Individual Behavior from Aggregate Data'' (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997). *'' Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research'' (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), with

Robert Keohane Robert Owen Keohane (born October 3, 1941) is an American political scientist working in the fields of international relations and international political economy. Following the publication of his influential book '' After Hegemony'' (1984), he h ...

and

Sidney Verba Sidney Verba (May 26, 1932 – March 4, 2019) was an American political scientist, librarian and library administrator. His academic interests were mainly American and comparative politics. He was the Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor at ...

. *''Unifying Political Methodology: The Likelihood Theory of Statistical Inference'' (Cambridge, UK and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989; reprinted Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1998). *''The Elusive Executive: Discovering Statistical Patterns in the Presidency'' (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1988), with Lyn Ragsdale. *''The Presidency in American Politics'' (New York and London: New York University Press, 1989), with Paul Brace and Christine Harrington.

References

External links