Adjunct Professor of Public Administration and Policy
Senior Visiting Scholar, Department of Political Science
Dr. Carolyn Bourdeaux has built a career at the intersection of policy, politics, and governance. She has served as a Democratic Member of Congress from Georgia from 2021-2022 after winning one of the most competitive races in the country. During her time in Congress, she focused on health care, small business and infrastructure and worked extensively with the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus to help pass the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act one of the most significant investments in infrastructure in US history.
Prior to entering politics, Dr. Bourdeaux was a noted state and local public finance expert and held an appointment as an Associate Professor of Public Management and Policy at Georgia State University. Among her many accomplishments, she served as Director of Georgia’s Senate Budget and Evaluation Office during the Great Recession, where she received recognition by the Senate for significant service to the State of Georgia (S.Res. 1598), and she served as a legislative aide to Senator Ron Wyden from Oregon working on a broad portfolio of issues from education and immigration to transportation and infrastructure.
She was elected by her peers to become a member of the National Academy for Public Administration, served as Chair of the Association for Budgeting and Financial Management, founded the Center for State and Local Finance at Georgia State University, and wrote an award-winning dissertation on the use of special purpose governments to finance critical community infrastructure.
