Brendan Stern, Ph.D., is a political scientist and writer. A recovering basketball junkie, he now explores what our arguments reveal about who we are—and who we might become.
Stern attended the California School for the Deaf in Fremont and University High School in Irvine, before earning his B.A. in Government at Gallaudet University. He later completed an M.A. in American Politics at American University, followed by a second M.A. and a Ph.D. in Political Theory at the Catholic University of America.
From 2012 to 2015, he was head coach of Gallaudet’s men’s basketball team, earning conference Coach of the Year honors after leading the program to its winningest season in school history. Today, he channels that same energy into coaching Gallaudet’s debate team and running the Center for Democracy in Deaf America (CDDA), where he has built nationally recognized, award-winning programs to foster healthy disagreement, debate, and civic engagement in American Sign Language (ASL). Under his leadership, Gallaudet debaters have won four intercollegiate tournaments and captured more than twenty speaker awards.
As an associate professor of American politics, Stern’s teaching and scholarship focus on persuasion, polarization, identity politics, American political thought, and democratic health. His work appears in journals such as Public Administration Review and Administrative Theory & Praxis and has been featured by C-SPAN, ESPN, NBC, ABC News, Inside Higher Ed, the Frederick News-Post, inquisitive, and Barron’s. He has presented at more than two dozen academic conferences and spoken at over thirty universities and organizations nationwide, from Cornell University to Southeastern Wisconsin Deaf Senior Citizens. He also served as Vice President of the American Society for Deaf Children.
When he’s off the clock, Stern is a diehard Knicks fan convinced that this year might finally be the year, a lover of good food and better arguments, and the father of two children who remind him daily why debate is a life skill.
Brendan Stern 