Mark Byrnes

Mark Byrnes, who grew up in Murfreesboro and graduated from Riverdale High School, is a professor of political science at Middle Tennessee State University, where he has taught since 1991. He specializes in American politics, with emphasis on the presidency and Tennessee government. Byrnes wrote the books James K. Polk: A Biographical Companion (ABC-CLIO, 2001), Politics and Space: Image Making by NASA (Praeger, 1994) and co-edited, with John R. Vile, Tennessee Politics and Government: Democracy in the Volunteer State (Vanderbilt University Press, 1998). He is currently editing a series of nine books for Greenwood Publishing called The President's Position: Debating the Issues. Byrnes has written chapters for Congressional Quarterly's Guide to the Presidency and Oxford's Historical Guide to American Government, in addition to other articles. He holds a B.S. in political science from MTSU, a Diploma in International and Comparative Politics from the London School of Economics, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from Vanderbilt University.

He is a 1993 graduate of Leadership Rutherford and a former member of the organization's Board of Trustees. In 1996 he won the Outstanding Advisor Award from MTSU's College of Liberal Arts and was a finalist for the MTSU Foundation's Outstanding Teacher Award.

With his wife, Julie, he has two daughters, Rachel and Abby, and a stepson, Clay.