Thomas E. Patterson is Bradlee Professor of Government and the Press in the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He was previously distinguished professor of political science in the Maxwell School of Citizenship at Syracuse University. Raised in a small Minnesota town near the Iowa and South Dakota borders, he was educated at South Dakota State University and the University of Minnesota, where he received his Ph.D. in 1971. Currently running the Vanishing Voter study at the Kennedy School of Government, which has been widely used in the media and on college campuses, Tom is also the author of six books and dozens of articles, which focus primarily on the media and elections.

His book, Out of Order (1994), received national attention when President Clinton said every politician and journalist should be required to read it. An earlier book, The Mass Media Election (1980), received a Choice award as Outstanding Academic Book, 1980-81. Another book by Patterson, The Unseeing Eye (1976), was recently selected by the American Association for Public Opinion Research as one of the fifty most influential books of the past half century in the field of public opinion.

His current research includes a study of White House communication and a study of the role of the news media in Western democracies. His work has been funded by major grants from the National Science Foundation, the Markle Foundation, the Smith-Richardson Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the Pew Charitable Trusts.