Fr. Scully is a professor of political science and Fellow of the Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame. He also serves as a trustee and fellow of the University. Fr. Scully founded ACE in 1993 and currently serves as Chair of the Alliance for Catholic Education Advisory Board and as director and fellow of the Institute for Educational Initiatives (IEI). The IEI consists of the various programs of ACE, as well as the Center for Research on Educational Opportunity (CREO), Education, Schooling and Society (ESS), and other education-related initiatives at Notre Dame. His research and graduate teaching focuses on comparative political institutions, especially political parties.  He has published numerous scholarly articles and six books, including his most recent work Democratic Governance in Latin America (Stanford, 2010). Ordained a Holy Cross priest in 1981, he served his first years of priesthood in Santiago, Chile. He earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley, after graduating summa cum laude from Notre Dame in 1976 and receiving his M.Div. from Notre Dame in 1979.