Paula D. McClain, Ph.D.

Paula D. McClain, Ph.D.
Dean of the Graduate School
Vice Provost for Graduate Education
Professor of Political Science and Public Policy
Duke University
RWJF Center for Health Policy at Meharry Medical College National Advisory Board Member

Dr. Paula D. McClain joined the Duke University faculty as professor of political science in 2000. In May of 2012, she was appointed dean of the university's Graduate School and vice provost for graduate education, becoming the first African American to serve as the dean of one of Duke's schools. McClain, a former president of the Southern Political Science Association and vice president of the American Political Science Association, among other positions, is well known among political scientists and other scholars. She held academic positions at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Arizona State University, and the University of Virginia before coming to Duke. Professor McClain also holds appointments in the Sanford School of Public Policy and the Department of African and African American Studies. She is also program director of the Race, Ethnicity and Politics Program; director of the Ralph Bunche Summer Institute; co-director of the Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity and Gender in the Social Sciences (REGSS); and former chair of Duke University's Academic Council.

Professor McClain's research has focused on racial minority group politics, particularly inter-minority political and social competition, as well as on urban politics and related issues. Her recent work has focused on the effects of Latino immigration into the South, which was cited in a New York Times article in April 2012 that examined relations between blacks and Latinos in the wake of the Trayvon Martin shooting. Dr. McClain also has written numerous scholarly articles, served on more than a dozen professional editorial boards and spoken at multiple conferences and other settings. She is the co-author, with Steven Tauber, of American Government in Black and White (Boulder: Paradigm Publishers, 2010). She and Joseph Stewart Jr. co-authored "Can We All Get Along?": Racial and Ethnic Minorities in American Politics (Boulder: Westview Press, 2009). She earned a BA, MA, and a Ph.D. in political science from Howard University.