John Tierney is a contributing writer for The Atlantic and a former professor of American
government at Boston College. He is the author of Organized Interests and American Democracy (with Kay L. Schlozman) and The U.S. Postal Service: Status and Prospects of a Government Enterprise. He studied political science as an undergraduate at Johns Hopkins University and earned a PhD in American Government at Harvard.

He is married to Susan Tierney, an expert on energy policy and economics, specializing in the electric and gas industries. They have two adult sons — James, an attorney in Washington, DC; and Tom, a recording engineer and musician in Brooklyn NY.