Donald Moynihan

Donald Moynihan is Professor of Public Affairs and served as the Associate Director of the La Follette School at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 2009–2012. His research examines the application of organization theory to public management issues such as performance, budgeting, homeland security, election administration, and employee behavior.

The Academy of Management’s Public and Nonprofit Division named his book, The Dynamics of Performance Management: Constructing Information and Reform, the best book for 2009. Journal articles Moynihan has authored have won awards from the Public and Nonprofit Division of the Academy of Management (2002), the American Review of Public Administration (2003), and Public Administration Review (2007). On three occasions Moynihan has won the American Society for Public Administration Wholey Award for outstanding scholarship on performance in public and nonprofit organizations (2009, 2011, and 2013). He won the 2011 National Academy of Public Administration/Wilder School award for scholarship in social equity. The University of Wisconsin–Madison gave him a Romnes Faculty Fellowship in 2009. Moynihan received the 2012 Distinguished Research Award from ASPA and the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration.

Moynihan is the co-editor of Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory and the co-editor of Public Administration Review for the Theory to Practice section. He serves on the editorial board of Public Management Review, American Review of Public Administration, State and Local Government Review, and Public Performance & Management Review. He is a member of the APPAM Policy Council and a former member of the Board of Directors for the Public Management Research Association, the Executive Council for the Academy of Management Public and Nonprofit Division, and the Executive Council, Public Administration Section of the American Political Science Association. In 2011 he was elected to the National Academy of Public Administration.

Moynihan completed his Bachelor of Arts in public administration at the University of Limerick, and his master’s degree and Ph.D. in public administration from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.