Charles Stewart III in one of our nation’s premier experts on elections, congressional politics, and American political development. He is the Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Political Science at MIT, where he has taught since1985. In 2017 he established the MIT Election Data + Science Lab (MEDSL), which applies scientific principles to how elections are studied and administered.

Professor Stewart is an established leader in the analysis of the performance of election systems and the quantitative assessment of election performance As well as leading MEDSL, in 2020, he partnered with Professor Nate Persily of the Stanford Law School to establish the Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project. Since 2001, Professor Stewart has also been a member of the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project, a leading research effort that applies scientific analysis to questions about election technology, election administration, and election reform. He is currently the MIT director of the project.  Working with the Pew Charitable Trusts, he helped with the development of Pew’s Elections Performance Index. Professor Stewart also provided advice to the Presidential Commission on Election Administration. His research on measuring the performance of elections and polling place operations led to his serving as  the co-editor (with Barry C. Burden) of The Measure of American Elections.

His research about Congress touches on the historical development of committees, origins of partisan polarization, and Senate elections. His books of congressional research include Budget Reform Politics, Electing the Senate (with Wendy J. Schiller), Fighting for the Speakership (with Jeffery A. Jenkins), and Analyzing Congress.

Professor Stewart is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  He has been recognized at MIT for his undergraduate teaching, being named to the second class of MacVicar Fellows in 1994, awarded the Baker Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, and the recipient of the Class of 1960 Fellowship. From 1992 to 2015, he served as Head of House of McCormick Hall, along with his spouse, Kathryn M. Hess.