Erik Herron

Erik is the Eberly Family Distinguished Professor of Political Science at West Virginia University. From 2001-14, he was on faculty at the University of Kansas where he served as Director of the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies (2004-07), Director of Graduate Studies (2010-11), Academic Advisor to the Dole Institute (2011), and Associate Department Chair (2012-14). He also served as a Program Director (2011-2014) and Intermittent Expert (2017-2018) at the National Science Foundation. His research focuses on political institutions, especially electoral systems. He has traveled extensively in Eastern Europe and Eurasia, including a term as a Fulbright scholar in Ukraine and 15 election observation missions. He has published research in the American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, World Politics, Comparative Political Studies, Electoral Studies, and other journals, and four books: Mixed Electoral Systems: Contamination and its Consequences (with Federico Ferrara and Misa Nishikawa), Elections and Democracy after Communism, The Oxford Handbook of Electoral Systems (with Robert Pekkanen and Matthew Shugart), and Normalizing Corruption: Failures of Accountability in Ukraine.

Ph.D., Michigan State University, 2000