Rachel Augustine Potter is an Associate Professor of Politics, a Senior Fellow at the Miller Center for Public Affairs, and Associate Professor of Public Policy by Courtesy in the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia.  Her research focuses on American political institutions, with a particular emphasis on the executive branch and the bureaucracy.

Her first book, Bending the Rules: Procedural Politicking in the Bureaucracy (University of Chicago Press, 2019), received the American Political Science Association’s Theodore Lowi award for the best first book in any field of political science, APSA’s Richard Neustadt award for the best book on executive politics, APSA's Herbert A. Simon book award for contributions to public administration scholarship, and the National Academy of Public Administration’s Louis Brownlow award for the best book on public administration. Her other research has appeared in political science, public policy, public administration, and administrative law journals. Dr. Potter has served as an expert witness before Congress, a consultant to the Administrative Conference of the United States, and as the President of the Midwest Public Administration Caucus. Before becoming a political scientist, she worked for a number of government bureaucracies, including the White House Office of Management and Budget, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, and the German Federal Ministry of the Interior.