Kevin Roberts

Kevin Roberts, Ph.D., was named president of The Heritage Foundation in October 2021. He succeeded former Heritage President Kay C. James as the seventh president in the organization’s 49-year history.

Roberts previously served as the chief executive officer of the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), an Austin-based nonprofit, nonpartisan research institute and the largest state think tank in the nation. Under Roberts’ leadership, TPPF more than doubled in size. He also expanded the Texas think tank’s influence nationwide, opening an office in Washington, D.C., so that TPPF research might better inform federal policy debates. 

A lifelong educator, Roberts earned his Ph.D. in American history from the University of Texas. After several years of teaching history at the collegiate level, Roberts in 2006 left the university to found John Paul the Great Academy, a co-ed, K-12 Catholic liberal arts school in Lafayette, Louisiana. Roberts served as the academy’s president and headmaster for seven years. 

In 2013, he resigned from the academy to become president of Wyoming Catholic College. Under his leadership, the college adopted a policy of refusing to accept federal student loans and grants, lest it be forced to violate Catholic tenets. This independent stance led The New York Times to describe the school as being full of “cowboy Catholics.” 

In addition to his doctorate, Roberts holds a master’s degree in history from Virginia Tech and a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Roberts and his wife have four children.