Jonathan E. Collins

Jonathan E. Collins (he/him/his) is an assistant professor of political science and education at Teachers College, Columbia University and an assistant professor of political science (by courtesy) at Columbia University. Professor Collins also serves as the associate director of the Center for Educational Equity. Before joining the Columbia University faculty, he was the Mary Tefft and John Hazen White Sr. Assistant Professor of Political Science, Education, and International and Public Affairs at Brown University.

Professor Collins’s research focuses on race and ethnic politics, urban politics, state and local politics, education politics and policy, and democratic theory. As a researcher, he has been at the forefront of the study of public participation at school board meetings. His book in progress, Democracy Speaks: School Board Governance through Deliberative Culture, demonstrates how democratic school board governance facilitates urban education policy reform. He has also written on African American voting behavior, civics education, local election reform, and school finance policy. His scholarship has been published in the American Political Science Review, Political Behavior, the Peabody Journal of Education, American Politics Research, the Urban Affairs Review, the Journal of Urban Affairs, and Local Government Studies. His public writings have appeared in the Washington Post, Education Week, the 74, and the Brookings Institute. Collins is also a regular columnist for Phi Delta Kappan.

Professor Collins is the recipient of numerous awards including the Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship Award, the American Political Science Association's Susan Clarke Young Scholar Award, and the Brown University Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship Award. His research has been funded by the Spencer Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES).

He holds a Ph.D. in political science and an M.A. in African American Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as well as a B.A. in English from Morehouse College.