Matthew Spalding is the Kirby Professor in Constitutional Government and Dean of the Van Andel Graduate School of Government at Hillsdale College and oversees the Allan P. Kirby Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship at Hillsdale's Washington, D.C. campus.

Spalding is the best-selling author of We Still Hold These Truths: Rediscovering Our Principles, Reclaiming Our Future and the original executive editor of The Heritage Guide to the Constitution, the first line-by-line analysis of each clause of the U.S. Constitution. Appointed executive director of the President's Advisory 1776 Commission, which produced The 1776 Report, he is currently a senior academic advisor for America250 projects.

Prior to joining Hillsdale, Spalding was vice president for American Studies at The Heritage Foundation and founding director of its B. Kenneth Simon Center for Principles and Politics. He is a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy and serves on the boards of The Steamboat Institute, Faith & Law, and New College of Florida.

He received his BA from Claremont McKenna College and his MA and PhD from the Claremont Graduate School.