Rate My Professor Herschel Thomas

Herschel Thomas is an Associate Professor of Public Affairs at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. He earned a Ph.D. in Government from the University of Texas at Austin in 2015, with a dissertation titled 'Contagious Agendas: The Spread of Issue Attention in the Policy Process.' He also holds an M.A. in Government from the same institution in 2011, an M.A. in Political Science from Pennsylvania State University in 2009, and a B.A. in Political Science along with a B.Phil. in Information Studies from Pennsylvania State University in 2009. Prior to his current role, Thomas served as Associate Professor of Political Science at West Virginia University from 2023 to 2024 and Assistant Professor there from 2020 to 2023. From 2015 to 2020, he was Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Texas at Arlington. He is a former manager and faculty affiliate of the Policy Agendas Project at UT Austin and currently a faculty fellow of the RGK Center for Philanthropy and Community Service.

Thomas's research examines American national institutions and policy processes, with an emphasis on the role of civil society in shaping public policy decision-making and outcomes. His interests include organized interests and lobbying, public health, disaster response, and land use policy. A prominent contribution is his co-authored book, Revolving Door Lobbying: Public Service, Private Influence, and the Unequal Representation of Interests (University Press of Kansas, 2017), with Timothy M. LaPira. Key publications also include 'When Bad News Becomes Routine: Continuous Information Moderates How Governments Respond to Policy Problems' in Political Research Quarterly (2022, with Derek A. Epp), 'Public Perceptions of the Role of Government and Non-State Actors in Responding to COVID-19' in Risk, Hazards & Crisis in Public Policy (2021, with Daniel Sledge), and 'From Disaster Response to Community Recovery: Nongovernmental Entities, Government, and Public Health' in American Journal of Public Health (2019, with Daniel Sledge). His work on non-governmental actors in disaster response has been funded by National Science Foundation RAPID grants, including awards 1800302 (2018), 2130062 (2021), and 2502630 (2023). Thomas has received the WVU Outstanding Honors EXCEL Mentor Award (2022) and the President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching at UT Arlington (2019). He teaches courses on policy development, the policy process, bureaucratic politics, disaster policy, organized interests and policy advocacy, and research design.