Keith Reeves is a professor of political science, former Department chair and Faculty Director  of the Program on Urban Inequality and Incarceration at the College's Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility. Prior to his appointment at Swarthmore in 1999, he was an associate professor of public policy in the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

A 1988 graduate of Swarthmore who majored in political science with the concentration in Black Studies and public policy and who attended Exeter College at Oxford University, England, Reeves teaches courses across the arenas of American government, electoral politics, and public opinion; the urban underclass, poverty, criminal justice policy; and behavioral research methods. He established Swarthmore's Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program in 2012.

Professor Reeves is a former Henry Luce Scholar (in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) and the author of Voting Hopes or Fears?: White Voters, Black Candidates and Racial Politics in America (Oxford University Press, 1997). At present, Reeves is working on a book project that explores several controversial explanations underlying the high incarceration trends among Black males. He is a member of the American Political Science Association, the Midwest Political Science Association, the National Eagle Scout Association, and an associate member of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.