Chris Weare is a Research Associate Professor within the University of Southern California School of Policy, Planning, and Development (SPPD). He received a BA in Government from Harvard University and a MPP and PhD in Public Policy from the University of California, Berkeley. He has been teaching and practicing public policy analysis for over 15 years. Currently, he runs SPPD's Policy Analysis Practicum, the capstone experience for Master's students, guiding a range of student projects for public, nonprofit, and private sector clients such as the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, and RAND.

Professor Weare has wide ranging experience as a policy analyst and program evaluator. His dissertation research on telecommunications policy was funded by the California Public Utilities Commission. He then worked in the US Congress where he translated this research into practice by drafting amendments to the bill that became the 1996 Telecommunications Reform Act. He has worked as a research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, and he has served as a principal investigator with the USC Neighborhood Participation Project, a major, ten-year evaluation of the institutionalization of a system of neighborhood councils in the City of Los Angeles.