Larry Evans is the Newton Family Professor of Government at the College of William and Mary, where he has been on the faculty since 1987. His main research and teaching interests are in the area of American national institutions. He is the author of two books: Congress Under Fire: Reform Politics and the Republican Majority, with Walter Oleszek (Houghton Mifflin, 1997) and Leadership in Committee: A Comparative Analysis of Leadership Behavior in the U.S. Senate (University of Michigan Press, 1991, 2001), as well as a number of articles and book chapters about congressional politics.

Evans has several ongoing research projects. One is an analysis of partisan coalition building in Congress. With funding from the National Science Foundation and along with a team of William and Mary students, his is coding extensive data from the archival records of past party whip counts. Currently, whip count data have been collected for House Democrats, 1955-86 and 1989-90, and for House Republicans, 1975-80 and 1989-90. As part of the project, he hopes to collect analogous whip materials for the Senate and more recent data for the House. Not too long ago, a New York Times political blog featured an entry about the project and the role of congressional whips in general.

Over the years, Professor Evans has served in a variety of staff positions in Congress and enjoys advising students about professional opportunities on Capitol Hill. From 1991-92, he was an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow, working in the personal office of former Rep. Lee H. Hamilton, D-Indiana. From 1992-93, he was Hamilton’s staff associate on the Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress. During 2003-07, he was co-editor of the Legislative Studies Quarterly, the leading scholarly journal specializing in legislatures.

Evans received a Ph. D. in political science from the University of Rochester, where he was fortunate to be able to take courses from Professors Richard F. Fenno, Jr., William H. Riker, and Larry M. Bartels, among other scholars.