Daniel Wirls is a professor of Politics and was chair of the department from 2005 to 2010. He received his Ph.D. in Government from Cornell and has been teaching at UCSC since 1988.

Daniel's research spans American political history, from the debates at the Constitutional Convention to the latest developments in military policy. His most recent book is Irrational Security: The Politics of Defense from Reagan to Obama (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010). Irrational Security uses the history of military policy from the end of the Cold War through the wars after 9/11 to show how the political process, especially in the form of partisan competition, pushes U.S. defense policy in a hawkish direction, with spending levels far in excess of rational security needs.

He is also author of Buildup: The Politics of Defense in the Reagan Era (Cornell University Press, 1992) and co-author of The Invention of the United States Senate (Johns Hopkins, 2004), in addition to articles and chapters on a variety of subjects, including historical examinations of the differences between the House and the Senate. At UCSC he teaches courses on military policy, the history of the separationof powers, Congress, as well as a large introductory course. He is a winner of two teaching awards at UCSC, one from the Division of Social Sciences and another from the Faculty Senate's Committee on Teaching.

In 1993 and 1994 Daniel was a Congressional Fellow and served as a legislative assistant to Representative Lee Hamilton and Senator Chris Dodd. He is on the national advisory board of the Council for a Livable World, one of the oldest anti-nuclear weapons organizations.

Beyond work and family, Daniel is a competitive triathlete, swimmer, and runner. In recent years he has focused on swim-run races, often referred to as aquathlons. He is a two time age-group national champion in that event and placed second in his age group at the 2010 world championships in Budapest.