Charles and Louise Travers Department of Political Science, UC Berkeley

Professor Hero's research and teaching focus on American democracy and politics, especially as viewed through the analytical lenses of Latino Politics, Racial/Ethnic Politics, State & Urban Politics, and Federalism. His book, Latinos and the U.S. Political System: Two-tiered Pluralism, received the American Political Science Association's [APSA] 1993 Ralph J. Bunche Award. He also authored Faces of Inequality: Social Diversity in American Politics (which was selected for the APSA’s Woodrow Wilson Award in 1999), and Racial Diversity and Social Capital: Equality and Community in America (2007).  He is also co-author of MultiEthnic Moments: The Politics of Urban Education Reform (2006), Newcomers, Insiders and Outsiders Immigrants and American Racial Politics in the Early 21st Century (2009), and Latino Lives in America: Making it Home (2010). He has also authored and co-authored a number of articles in scholarly journals, and is a co-principal investigator on the Latino National Survey (completed in 2006).  

He previously held faculty positions as Packey J. Dee Professor of American Democracy in the Department of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame (2000-10), at the University of Colorado at Boulder (1989-2000), and the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs (1980-88). He served as President of the Midwest Political Science Association (2007-08), as a Vice President of the American Political Science Association (2003-04), and President of the Western Political Science Association (1999-2000). He has also served on the editorial board of several major political science journals.