Kurt Thurmaier is a Distinguished Engagement Professor in the Department of Public Administration at Northern Illinois University, where he joined the faculty in 2006 and has served as department chair. A Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, he has made lasting contributions to public budgeting, financial management, and local governance through more than 40 peer-reviewed articles and six authored or edited books, including Policy and Politics in State Budgeting (2001). His scholarship helped launch the multiple rationalities model of budgeting and introduced the concept of “picket-fence regionalism” to explain metropolitan cooperation through interlocal agreements. His research has appeared in leading journals, including Public Administration Review, Public Budgeting & Finance, and American Review of Public Administration, and extends internationally through fieldwork in Kenya, Tanzania, Poland, and Malaysia. Dr. Thurmaier has also provided extensive professional leadership as ABFM Chair, ABFM conference chair, mentor to PhD students, and developer of innovative budgeting teaching tools, reflecting a career that bridges theory, practice, international engagement, and service to the field.