David Collier, born in 1942 in the United States, is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley, where he joined the faculty in 1969 as an assistant professor and advanced to full professor. He earned a B.A. from Swarthmore College in 1964, an M.A. from Yale University in 1966, and a Ph.D. in political science from Yale in 1969. Collier's scholarship centers on Latin American politics, including party systems, labor movements, and critical junctures, with influential books such as 'Shaping the Political Arena' (1991, co-authored with Ruth Berins Collier) and 'The Oxford Handbook of Political Methodology' (2008, co-edited). He has made foundational contributions to qualitative and comparative methodology, developing concepts like 'critical juncture' methods and precision in case study research, and is recognized as a pioneering scholar in comparative methodology and conceptualization. Collier served as chair of the UC Berkeley Political Science Department (1985-1988), president of the APSA Comparative Politics Section (1995-1996), and received the 2020 Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science for lifetime achievement in methodology. His work has shaped generations of scholars in political science, emphasizing rigorous conceptualization and measurement in non-quantitative research.