Melvin Jay "Mel" Hinich (April 29, 1939 – September 6, 2010) was the Mike Hogg Professor of Local Government and a professor of government and economics at the University of Texas at Austin. Hinich was also a research professor at UT's Applied Research Laboratories. Known as an expert in political science with a long record of distinction in a number of fields, he wrote seven books and published more than 200 papers in statistics/statistical theory, signal processing, economics, political science, biomedical engineering, pharmacy, and libraryscience.