Scott Straus is Professor of Political Science at the University of California–Berkeley, where he also serves as chair of the department. A fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, he is the author or editor of ten books, including Making and Unmaking Nations: War, Leadership, and Genocide in Modern Africa (Cornell, 2015), which won the Grawemeyer Award for Improving World Order. Straus has written extensively on Rwanda, including the award-winning The Order of Genocide: Race, Power, and War (Cornell, 2006) and the coedited book Remaking Rwanda. He is also coeditor of The Cambridge World History of Genocide, Vol III (Cambridge, 2023) and coauthor of Introduction to International Studies: Global Forces, Interactions, and Tensions (Sage, 2026).

Straus has published articles in American Journal of Political Science, World Politics, Politics and Society, Foreign Affairs, Perspectives on Politics, African Affairs, Journal of Peace Research, Terrorism and Political Violence, Genocide Studies and Prevention, Journal of Genocide Research, and others. He has served a coeditor of the London-based African Affairs, as a founding editor of the Paris-based journal Violence: An International Journal and editor of the Critical Human Rights book series at the University of Wisconsin Press.

In addition to academic research, Straus engages policy and policymakers on genocide and mass-atrocity prevention. He is the author of Fundamentals of Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention (US Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2016), a primer for practitioners and students. He was appointed to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum by President Obama and remains active on the Museum’s Committee of Conscience. He also regularly consults for memorial museums on contemporary genocide.

Straus has received fellowships from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, Andrew Mellon Foundation, National Science Foundation, Social Science Research Council, and United States Institute of Peace.

Prior to his academic career, Straus was a freelance journalist based in Nairobi and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his 1996 coverage of the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo.