Dean Susan Rivera has appointed Professor Antoine Banks as Chair of the Department of Government & Politics, effective January 7, 2024. 

Professor Antoine Banks has been with the department since 2009. He has served as Interim Chair since July 2023, and prior to that served as Associate Chair of the department since July 2021, and has been the Director of the Government and Politics Experimental Lab since 2012. Banks has been instrumental in expanding the department's focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion, and has been a key mentor to new and junior faculty in the department since his promotion to full professor in 2020. 

In appointing Banks as interim Chair in July, Dean Rivera commented "I have absolute confidence that Antoine will be a highly effective chair and a strong leader and advocate for your department." In January, she shared her gratitude for Banks's "willingness to take over the responsibility with minimal notice back then, and I [sic] am now confident he will provide innovative and effective leadership of GVPT over the term of his appointment."

Banks's research interests include racial and ethnic politics, emotions, political psychology, and public opinion. His book, Anger and Racial Politics: The Emotional Foundation of Racial Attitudes in America, published by Cambridge University Press, explores the link between emotions and racial attitudes and the consequences it has for political preferences.