Sidney Verba is the Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor Emeritus and research professor of government at Harvard University. He served as director of the Harvard University Library for 24 years. Verba has taught at Princeton, Stanford, the University of Chicago, and at Harvard for over 40 years.

One of the nation’s most renowned political scientists, Verba is an award-winning author of over 20 books, including The Civic Culture (with Gabriel A. Almond; Princeton University Press, 1963); Participation in America (with Norman Nie; Harper and Row, 1972); The Changing American Voter (with Norman Nie and John Petrocik; Harvard University Press, 1976); Voice and Equality (with Kay L. Schlozman and Henry E. Brady; Harvard University Press, 1995); and The Private Roots of Public Action (with Nancy E. Burns and Kay L. Schlozman; Harvard University Press, 2001).

Verba was a member of the SSRC’s Committee on Comparative Politics (1954–1972) from 1962 to 1972. He has been president of the American Political Science Association. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Among his awards are the James Madison Prize of the American Political Science Association, the Association's highest award, and the Skytte Award from Uppsala University in Sweden, the major international award for significant contributions to political science worldwide.