Rate My Professor Nathaniel Beck

Nathaniel L. Beck is Professor of Politics and Public Policy in the NYU Wilf Family Department of Politics and Associated Professor of Public Service at the NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. He joined New York University in 2003 following a twenty-five-year career at the University of California, San Diego, where he served as assistant professor from 1978 to 1986, associate professor from 1986 to 1993, and professor from 1993 to 2003. Beck earned a B.A. in Mathematics and Political Science from the University of Rochester in 1967, an M.A. in 1969, an M.Phil. in 1972, and a Ph.D. in Political Science in 1977 from Yale University.

Beck's research centers on political methodology and political economy, with a focus on statistical issues in political science, including time-series-cross-section data analysis, fixed effects models, Bayesian methods, multiway clustering, and spatial effects. His seminal contributions include the 1995 American Political Science Review article "What to Do (and Not to Do) with Time-Series Cross-Section Data," co-authored with Jonathan N. Katz, and "Modeling Dynamics in Time-Series-Cross-Section Political Economy Data" in the Annual Review of Political Science (2011). He served as methods co-editor for the International Encyclopedia of Political Science. Beck teaches undergraduate courses such as Controversies in Public Policy: Logic and Evidence and quantitative methods seminars, Ph.D.-level quantitative methods courses, and leads the Senior Honors Seminar on research design. In 2011, he received the Career Achievement Award from the Society for Political Methodology. His work has profoundly influenced quantitative methods in political science, emphasizing rigorous research design and statistical interpretation.