Don DeBats is Professor and Head of American Studies. His research interests cover contemporary and past US politics; he is a frequent commentator on current US politics and has written extensively on US political history. His research appointments include the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the National Humanities Center of the United States, and the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities at the University of Virginia. He has been a Visiting Professor at the College of William and Mary in the United States. His degrees are from Michigan State University (Mathematics) and the University of Wisconsin, Madison (MA, History) and PhD (major field: American History; minor field; Political Science). His current research, supported by the Australian Research Council, combine the contemporary interest in "the social logic of politics" with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) methodologies to the study of past political engagement, using unique individual level political records from 19thcentury America.

• US Politics; US Political History; Politics and Society of the United States; US Foreign Policy; US Public Policy; US Elections
• Canadian Politics; Canadian Politics and Society
• Comparative Australian-Canadian-US Politics and Political History

CURRENT RESEARCH PROJECT

Virginia Foundation for the Humanities project entitled "Unlocking the Social Logic of Past Politics" http://sociallogic.iath.virginia.edu/