Stephen M. Caliendo

Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Stephen Maynard Caliendo grew up in a Western Pennsylvania exurb and later attended Clarion University to study English literature and political science. He earned Master's and Ph.D. degrees in political science from Purdue University and has taught at the University of Missouri--St. Louis and Avila University (Kansas City, Missouri). He is currently Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Political Science at North Central College (Naperville, Illinois).

With Charlton D. McIlwain (New York University), Caliendo is co-director of The Project on Race in Political Communication (RaceProject.org), which seeks to provide information, through social science research and public commentary, about the way race and politics interact with communication. The first book from the Race Project, Race Appeal: How Candidate Invoke Race in U.S. Political Campaigns (Temple University Press), was published in January of 2011 and won the American Political Science Association's Ralph J. Bunche Award in 2012 for best scholarly work in political science that explores the phenomenon of ethnic and cultural pluralism. Caliendo and McIlwain are co-editors of The Routledge Companion to Race and Ethnicity (2020, 2010), which is now in its second edition, and have co-authored articles in the Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, American Behavioral Scientist, and the Journal of Black Studies. They have also contributed entries to Polling in America (an encyclopedia of public opinion), The Encyclopedia of Black Studies and The Encyclopedia of Political Communication, among other publications. The RaceProject maintains an active presence on Facebook (RaceProject) and Twitter (@PRPC).

On his own, Caliendo has written about media coverage of human rights and is the author of Inequality in America: Race, Poverty and Fulfilling Democracy's Promise (Routledge, forthcoming; Westview, 2017, 2014) and Teachers Matter: The Trouble with Leaving Political Education to the Coaches (Praeger 2000), in which he examines the effects of political socialization on attitudes toward American political institutions. He has authored or co-authored dozens of papers presented at national and regional professional conferences and is often called upon to provide analysis for print media stories and to appear on radio and television programs to lend his expertise to national, state and local political issues.

Caliendo is a regular political analyst for Chicago area television stations. He has been quoted in such media outlets as The Washington Post, The Guardian UK, The Chicago Tribune, The Kansas City Star, and ABC News.com. For more than a decade, he has provided analysis for national and local radio (including NPR's Weekend Edition, KMOX in St. Louis and WGN in Chicago) and on ABC and Fox network affiliates in St. Louis and Chicago, respectively. He has also been interviewed by public radio in Sweden, Television of Spain TVN (Poland), and Al Jazeera English, among others.

Caliendo has been honored with the Professor of the Year award at Avila University (2002), as well as the Clarence F. Dissinger Award for Outstanding Teaching by a Senior Faculty Member at North Central College (2007). In 2010, he was a recipient of the Emerging Voice Award from Purdue University's College of Liberal Arts, and was recognized with the Dissinger Prize for Outstanding Faculty Scholarship at North Central College in 2011. He held a Ruge Distinguished Teaching Fellowship at North Central College from 2013 to 2016. He lives in Chicago with his wife, Jillian, and is the proud father of a bright and spirited daughter, Amelia and twins, Gianni and Stella.