Patrick Roberts

Patrick S. Roberts is Professor in the Center for Public Administration and Policy at Virginia Tech's School of Public and International Affairs, based at the Washington Metro area campus in Arlington. His research and teaching focus on homeland security, emergency and crisis governance, public management, and innovation and artificial intelligence in the public sector.

He is the author of Disasters and the American State (Cambridge University Press, 2013) and his articles have appeared in Public Administration Review, American Review of Public Administration, Perspectives on Public Management and Governance, Government Information Quarterly, Journal of the American Planning Association, Journal of Public Policy, Political Science Quarterly, and Disasters, among other outlets. His current research examines how public servants can maintain autonomy and competence in an age of thinking machines.

Roberts also works in practice. As a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow, he was senior foreign policy advisor in the State Department's Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation. He has been principal or co-principal investigator on more than $1.3 million in grants, and he comments regularly in outlets including NPR and the Washington Post.

At Virginia Tech, Roberts teaches graduate courses on homeland security, crisis governance, leadership and public management, and the ethical foundations of public administration. He has served as MPA director, and Associate CPAP chair, has supervised eleven doctoral dissertations, and was recognized by the Virginia Tech Graduate School for mentoring in 2024. He has been a visiting professor at Rutgers University and at the University of Heidelberg in Germany. He serves on the editorial boards of the American Review of Public Administration, Risk Crisis, Hazards & Public Policy, and the Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia and pursued postdoctoral fellowships at Stanford and Harvard.

Areas of Expertise:

• Homeland Security
• Emergency and Crisis Managment
• Public Management and Leadership
• Artificial Intelligence and Innovation in Government
• Disaster Policy and Recovery
• Public Sector Ethics