Rate My Professor Nick Goedert

Nicholas Goedert is an associate professor of political science at Virginia Tech, where he serves in the Department of Political Science within the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences. He is also PPE Affiliated Faculty at the David H. Kellogg Center for Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. Goedert holds a Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton University and a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center. His research addresses a broad agenda related to legislative elections and American politics, including partisan gerrymandering, election law, Congress, electoral competition, and representation. His work has been published in leading journals such as the American Journal of Political Science, State Politics and Policy Quarterly, Election Law Journal, Research and Politics, and Legislative Studies Quarterly. Select publications include "The Pseudoparadox of Partisan Mapmaking and Congressional Competition" (State Politics and Policy Quarterly, 2017), "Asymmetries in Potential for Partisan Gerrymandering" (Legislative Studies Quarterly, 2024), and "Black Representation and District Compactness in Southern Congressional Districts" (Representation, 2024). In 2022, he authored Ground War: Courts, Commissions, and the Fight over Partisan Gerrymanders (Oxford University Press), examining litigation, commissions, and the effects of partisan gerrymandering on congressional districts.

Goedert served as an expert witness in the Wisconsin redistricting case Whitford v. Gill, adjudicated by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018. He has consulted for the advocacy group FairVote and the Pennsylvania state legislature on election structure issues. As a PPE Research Fellow during the 2023-2024 academic year, he supported interdisciplinary research at Virginia Tech. His expertise on gerrymandering and elections has been featured in media interviews and news coverage of political events, contributing to public understanding and academic discourse in American politics.