Kerry L. Haynie

Kerry L. Haynie is Professor of Political Science and African and African American Studies. He served as Dean of the Social Sciences from 2022 to 2026 and previously served as Chair of the Department of Political Science and Chair of Duke's Academic Council (Faculty Senate). He founded and directed the Summer Institute on Tenure and Professional Advancement, a national mentoring initiative for junior faculty that received more than $1.3 million in grant support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Professor Haynie's research examines how the theories, structures, and practices of American political institutions shape the efforts of African Americans and women to organize and exert influence within the political system. His scholarship has been recognized with distinguished awards from three research sections of the American Political Science Association. A paper he co-authored with Beth Reingold received the 2013 Best Paper Award from the APSA Women and Politics Research Section. In 2021, his book Race, Gender, and Political Representation: Toward a More Intersectional Approach, co-authored with Beth Reingold and Kristen Widner, received the Richard F. Fenno, Jr. Prize for the best book in Legislative Studies. In 2025, he received the Mac Jewell Enduring Contribution Award from the State Politics and Policy Section of the American Political Science Association. The award recognized the lasting influence of his 1999 article, co-authored with Kathleen Bratton, "Agenda-Setting and Legislative Success in State Legislatures: The Effects of Gender and Race," for its continuing impact on the study of state politics more than two decades after publication (https://polisci.duke.edu/news/enduring-impact-seat-table-still-matters).

Among his other publications are, African American Legislators in the American States (Columbia University Press); New Race Politics in America: Understanding Minority and Immigrant Voting (co-edited with Jane Junn, Cambridge University Press); The Encyclopedia of Minorities in American Politics, Volume I: African Americans and Asian Americans; and The Encyclopedia of Minorities in American Politics, Volume II: Hispanic Americans and Native Americans (both published by Oryx Press). Professor Haynie has delivered invited lectures on race, gender, and politics throughout the United States and internationally, including in France, Germany, and South Africa. He is also a frequent political analyst for national and international print and broadcast media.

At Duke, Professor Haynie teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on African American politics, Southern politics, urban politics, and comparative state politics and policy. He has served as faculty director of three undergraduate scholarship programs: the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program, the Alumni Endowed Merit Scholarship, and the Trinity Scholars Merit Scholarship. His commitment to teaching and mentoring has been recognized with the Duke Graduate School's Dean's Award for Excellence in Mentoring (2015). He is also the recipient of Duke University's Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Award (2012), Blue Ribbon Diversity Award (2012), and Samuel DuBois Cook Award (2014).

Before joining Duke in 2003, Professor Haynie was a member of the faculty at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and the University of Pennsylvania. He earned B.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Master's degree from the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh.