Dr. Joseph “Dallas” Breen is Executive Director of the John C. Stennis Institute of Government and Community Development and an Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at Mississippi State University. His expertise includes state and local government, human resources management, demography, survey research, and statistical analysis. Throughout his career, he has worked to connect scholarship and applied research with public service to strengthen communities and improve quality of life across Mississippi.

As principal investigator, Dr. Breen has led numerous applied research grants, contracts, and policy studies for the State of Mississippi and other organizations in areas including leadership development, disaster recovery, elections, public health, and state and local governance. He and his colleagues at the Stennis Institute have also assisted more than fifty municipalities, counties, and school districts with redistricting across the last two decennial census cycles. His research has appeared in journals such as the American Review of Public Administration, The Energy Journal, Public Organization Review, and the Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, and he serves as a peer reviewer for journals in economics, political science, public policy, and public administration.

Dr. Breen’s commitment to civic engagement extends beyond research. He partners with community and nonprofit organizations to promote civic education throughout the state, and he provides annual training for newly elected officials through association meetings and professional development programs across Mississippi. At Mississippi State, he chaired the faculty and staff task force on performance management, which rewrote the university’s performance review process and created a new approach to evaluating MSU employees.

A respected leader in public administration, Dr. Breen currently serves as President ex officio of the Southeastern Conference for Public Administration (SECoPA), President of the Mississippi Chapter of the American Society for Public Administration, and Vice Chair and President-Elect of the Mississippi Certified Public Manager Program Advisory Board. He is a past President of the Consortium of University Public Service Organizations (CUPSO) and has long chaired SECoPA’s Collins Award Committee for the outstanding doctoral paper. His recent honors include SECoPA’s 2024 Donato J. Pugliese Distinguished Senior Member and Public Service Award and Mississippi State University’s 2014 Zacharias Distinguished Staff Award.