Michael D. Kennedy is vice provost for international affairs, director of the International Institute, and associate professor of sociology at the University of Michigan.

He is a faculty associate at the Program in the Comparative Study of Social Transformations, and at the Center for European Studies, Center for Research on Social Organization, Center for Russian and East European Studies, and the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan Business School. He also serves on the Executive Committee for the Center for International Business Education and the University of Michigan Museum of Art. He is a former director of the Center for Russian and East European Studies and Program in the Comparative Study of Social Transformations.

Professor Kennedy's early scholarship focused on the political sociology of Poland, as represented in the book Professionals, Power and Solidarity in Poland (1991). Among other publications, he has been editor or co-editor of three volumes addressing East European and international affairs. His next book, Cultural Formations of Postcommunism, is forthcoming in 2002 from the University of Minnesota Press.