Matthew Dull

Matthew Dull is Associate Professor in the Center for Public Administration and Policy, where his work reflects Virginia Tech's tripartite land-grant mission of scholarship, teaching, and outreach.

A scholar of U.S. government, Dull has published empirical research on government reform, political appointees, and congressional oversight in leading journals, including the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Public Administration Review, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Presidential Studies Quarterly, Journal of Public Policy, and Policy Studies Journal. His current research on congressional capacity reconstructs the eight-decade history of the House Appropriations Committee's Surveys & Investigations (S&I) staff, a nonpartisan investigative unit created in 1943 and quietly reorganized out of existence in 2024. For eighty years its investigators worked anonymously, scrutinizing how federal agencies spent money and reporting only to committee members. Published in Legislative Studies Quarterly (2026), Dull's article is the first reconstruction of this important institution, drawing on interviews with former staff and an archive of S&I studies assembled from public and private collections. The work was featured in The Washington Post in August 2026, when a coalition of national transparency and government accountability organizations endorsed a letter urging House appropriators to preserve S&I's records at the National Archives.

Dull's teaching spans doctoral to undergraduate students. He has a long record of advising doctoral research, and in 2025 he taught CPAP's new doctoral cornerstone seminar introducing first-year students to the craft of social science research. He created and for nearly a decade he developed and taught the Washington Experience seminar, a distinctive DC-based experiential learning course in which students meet directly with dozens of public officials and practitioners across Congress, executive agencies, oversight offices, and the nonprofit and advocacy communities. He also teaches graduate and undergraduate policy analysis.

Dull’s diverse outreach efforts extend his teaching and scholarship, engaging critical questions at a transformational time in US government. In January 2026, he organized The Future of Government Oversight, a workshop convened at the Virginia Tech Research Center that brought together scholars, inspectors general, and accountability practitioners to consider what oversight institutions will need in the years ahead. Closer to home, Dull led students at Powell Elementary School in a successful, multi-year campaign to designate the eastern red-backed salamander the District of Columbia's official amphibian, an effort covered by The Washington Post, Washingtonian, The Week Junior, Smithsonian Magazine, and other outlets.

Areas of Expertise:

• U.S. government and public administration
• Congressional Oversight
• Presidential appointees
• Government accountability
• Government reform and performance management
• Government Reform