David Van Slyke

In 2020, Van Slyke was appointed to the Defense Business Board by the United States Secretary of Defense Mark Esper.

In 2016, Van Slyke was appointed the 10th Dean of the Maxwell School, succeeding James Steinberg. He leads the school of more than 3,000 undergraduate and graduate students in all the social sciences.

In addition to his scholarship, Van Slyke has traveled globally, working with foreign governments, nonprofit, and business organizations on performance measurement, strategic planning, and executive education. His travels have taken him to five continents. From 2008-2016 Van Slyke served on the faculty of UNU-MERIT as a Non-Resident Visiting Faculty Member. In addition, he has worked with senior government and military officials in the Government Accountability Office, the Office of Management and Budget, the United States Coast Guard, and the World Bank, among many others. He is currently Director and Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration (United States) and a co-editor of the "Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory" and the "Journal of Strategic Contracting and Negotiation." Van Slyke has also written op-eds and has been featured by media outlets like NPR, The Washington Post, Politico, and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

David M. Van Slyke is an American educator and policy expert on Public Administration, Contracting, and Nonprofit Organization. He is Dean of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, which is ranked among the nation's leading school of public and international affairs. He has taught at Syracuse University since 2004 and is an expert on public-private partnerships, public sector contracting and contract management, and policy implementation. He previously served on the faculty at Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University from 1999-2004

Since 2004, Van Slyke has been a faculty member in the Public Administration and International Relations department at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. He is a two-time recipient of the Birkhead-Burkhead Award and Professorship for Teaching Excellence, and is a member of the Campbell Public Affairs Institute. His research on strategic contracting, public-private partnerships, and public administration is highly regarded by both scholars and practitioners in local, state, and federal government. His most recent book coauthored with Trevor Brown and Matthew Potoski, "Complex Contracting: Government Purchasing in the Wake of the U.S. Coast Guard's Deepwater Program" received the Best Book Award in 2014 from the American Society for Public Administration and an Honorable Mention from the Public and Nonprofit Section of the Academy of Management best book award for 2016.

Van Slyke taught on the faculty at Andrew Young School of Policy Studies in Atlanta from 1999-2004 as an assistant professor, where he was the Director of the Nonprofit Studies Program. Van Slyke's research and teaching focused on nonprofit organizations, philanthropy, Public-Private Partnership, and Contracting. In addition, he worked as a consultant with a variety of community organizations, including the Community Foundation of Greater Atlanta and United Way Worldwide.

Born in Beacon, New York, Van Slyke first received his undergraduate degree in 1990. For the next 10 years, he worked in both New York state government, private, and nonprofit organizations. He received a master's degree from University at Albany, SUNY and a PhD in Public Administration and Policy from the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy at University at Albany, SUNY in 2000.