Manny Teodoro

Manuel (Manny) Teodoro is a Professor of Public Affairs whose work lies at the intersection of politics, public policy, and public management. His research focuses on U.S. environmental policy and implementation, with particular emphasis on drinking water governance, environmental justice, and the management, policy, and finance of public utilities. Teodoro is widely recognized for combining rigorous empirical research with applied scholarship, and he works directly with governments and water sector leaders across the United States to address pressing policy and management challenges.

Teodoro is the editor of Safe Drinking Water Act: The Next Fifty Years (Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming 2026), which examines the future of federal drinking water policy. He is also the author, with Samantha Zuhlke and David Switzer, of The Profits of Distrust: Citizen-Consumers, Drinking Water, and the Crisis of Confidence in American Government (Cambridge University Press, 2022). This award-winning book argues that reliable basic services are foundational to government legitimacy and links the rise of the bottled water industry to declining trust in American democracy. His first book, Bureaucratic Ambition: Careers, Motives, and the Innovative Administrator (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011), advances a theory of administrative ambition, demonstrating how career motivations shape innovation, political engagement, and democratic governance within public organizations.

In addition to his theoretical contributions, Teodoro pursues an extensive program of applied research on utility management, rate design, affordability, and equity. He has developed novel methods for analyzing utility rate equity and affordability and regularly collaborates with public officials, regulators, and utility leaders to inform policy design and operational decision-making. His work on public management and bureaucratic politics emphasizes labor markets as political phenomena and as predictors of organizational performance.

Teodoro’s scholarship and teaching have received numerous honors. His awards include the Donald R. Boyd Award from the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies and the Hydro 20 Award from WaterLoop and Sciens Water in 2025; the Lynton Keith Caldwell Prize from the American Political Science Association for The Profits of Distrust in 2024; the Robert F. and Sylvia T. Wagner Distinguished Faculty Award from the University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Letters & Sciences in 2023; the Evan Ringquist Best Paper Award from the APSA Science, Technology, and Environmental Politics Section in 2022; multiple Best Paper Awards from the American Water Works Association Management & Leadership Division (2017, 2019, 2020, and 2021); the Herbert Simon Book Award from the American Political Science Association for Bureaucratic Ambition in 2016; the Best Book Award from the American Society for Public Administration’s Section on Public Administration Research in 2013; the Norton Long Young Scholar Award from the APSA Urban Politics Section in 2010; the Fredric Jablin Dissertation Award from the International Leadership Association and the NASPAA Dissertation Award in 2007; and the Lurie Teaching Prize from the University of Michigan Honors Program in 2003.