Biography

Natasha Piano is an Assistant Professor of Political Theory in the Department of Political Science at UCLA. She specializes in democratic theory and the history of political thought, focusing on the realist and empirical traditions in political science and Italian political philosophy.

Her first monograph, Democracy and Elites: The Secret History of American Political Science (forthcoming, Harvard University Press) tells the story of how American Political Science was shaped by a fundamental misreading of Italian democratic theorists Mosca, Pareto, and Michels — a misreading with far-ranging consequences for all social science research. She is also the co-editor of Florentine Political Writings from Petrarch to Machiavelli (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019), a volume containing her own translations of Francesco Guicciardini’s political treatises. Her work has appeared in European Journal of Political Theory, Journal of Politics, Revue européenne des sciences sociales, Critical Review, and Perspectives on Politics.

Prior to joining UCLA, Natasha was an Assistant Collegiate Professor and Harper Schmidt Fellow at the University of Chicago. She received her PhD in Political Science from the University of Chicago, an MA in Social Science from the University of Chicago, and a BA (summa cum laude) in History and Political Science (honors) from the University of Pennsylvania. Her dissertation was awarded the Saller Prize for Best Dissertation in the Division of the Social Sciences at the University of Chicago.