Maggie Penn is a Professor of Political Science and Quantitative Theory and Methods at Emory University. She is a formal political theorist whose work focuses on social choice theory, political institutions, and inter-group dynamics. She regularly teaches courses on electoral systems, positive political theory, and social choice. Her work has been published with Cambridge University Press and in the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, Journal of Theoretical Politics, Annual Review of Political Science, Mathematical & Computer Modelling, Political Analysis, Political Science Research & Methods, Journal of Political Institutions and Political Economy, Quarterly Journal of Political Science, PS: Political Science and Politics, Public Choice, Social Choice & Welfare, The Good Society, Philosophy Compass, and Complexity. She co-edits the Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions book series at Cambridge University Press. From 2015 through 2022 she was a Managing Editor of Social Choice & Welfare, and currently serves on its advisory board.
Penn received her Ph.D. in Social Science from the California Institute of Technology in 2003 and her B.A. in Economics and Applied Mathematics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1999. Prior to arriving at Emory she was Assistant Professor of Social and Decision Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University (2003-2005), Assistant Professor of Government at Harvard University (2005-2009), Associate Professor of Political Science at Washington University in St. Louis (2009-2015), and Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago (2015-2018). She is a 1995 graduate of the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts.