Scott Adler came to CU Boulder in the fall of 1996, when he joined the faculty as a professor of political science. He became dean of the Graduate School in June 2019.
Scott served as chair of the Political Science department and was founding director of the department’s American Politics Research Lab. He has also served as director of the Center to Advance Research and Teaching in the Social Sciences, 2016–18, and as director of graduate studies in Political Science, 2013–16.
Scott’s research uses theoretical models of legislative organization to examine congressional agenda setting and committee power. He is the author of Why Congressional Reforms Fail: Reelection and the House Committee System (University of Chicago Press, 2002), which was awarded the Alan Rosenthal Prize from the Legislative Studies Section of the American Political Science Association, and Congress and the Politics of Problem Solving (Cambridge University Press, 2012, co-authored with John Wilkerson). He is co-editor of The Macropolitics of Congress (Princeton University Press, 2006). His most recent book, The U.S. Congress (W.W. Norton, 2019, co-authored with Jeffrey Jenkins and Charles Shipan) is a widely used textbook for students of Congress.
Scott is co-PI of the Congressional Bills Project, which has compiled and coded data on all bills introduced in Congress since World War II. Hi current research, funded by the Hewlett Foundation's Madison Initiative, examines Congress’s ability to renew and update expiring programs and laws over the last half-century. Scott has held visiting positions at Stanford University, Yale University, Australian National University, and the University of Oklahoma.
As dean, Scott’s vision for the Graduate School focuses on broadening the accessibility of CU Boulder’s graduate programs to a wider range of students, while also enabling students to gain knowledge and skills that go beyond a single discipline or field of study. In this academic leadership position, Scott will support and expand the many successful initiatives in place to enhance the experience of graduate students and the quality of graduate education at CU Boulder. He is honored to work with some of the finest graduate students anywhere.
Scott received his doctoral and master’s degrees in political science from Columbia University, and his bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Michigan.