Marvin Overby joined the faculty of PSU-Harrisburg in January 2020 as professor of political science and director of the School of Public Affairs, after stints at the University of Missouri (2002-2020), University of Mississippi (1993-2002) and Loyola University Chicago (1990-1993). He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma (1991), where he was a fellow at the Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center. He twice served as Fei Yi-Ming Visiting Professor at the Johns Hopkins University-Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies in Nanjing, PRC (1997-1998, 2005-2006); as Laszlo Orzagh Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer at the University of Szeged in Hungary (2000-01); and as a visiting professor at Vesalius College in Brussels (2009).

His research and teaching interests are broad, and include both a number of topics in American politics as well as some in the area of comparative legislative analysis. Recent and on-going projects include a number related to Congress (e.g., filibusters in the Senate, public opinion regarding congressional leaders, use of restrictive rules in the House, and member retirement decisions in the House and Senate), state legislative organization (e.g., representativeness of committees in both upper and lower state legislative chambers, historical development of state legislative institutions), minority politics (e.g., the Great Migration, public attitudes toward homosexuals, public estimations of homosexual population size), campaign advertising (e.g., use of radio in political campaigns), and comparative analysis of legislatures (e.g., parliamentary free votes on controversial policy proposals, parliamentary retirements).