CAMBRIDGE, MA — The Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, based at Harvard Kennedy School, is pleased to announce the appointment of fall 2017 fellows and visiting faculty.
“I am delighted to welcome a stellar group of scholars, journalists, entrepreneurs, and policymakers to join the Shorenstein Center this fall,” said Center Director Nicco Mele.
Joan Shorenstein Fellows spend the academic semester researching and writing a paper, participating in events, and interacting with students, faculty, and the Harvard community.
Donna Brazile is the former Democratic National Committee (DNC) interim chair, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, and author of the upcoming book Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House. She is a former syndicated newspaper and magazine columnist, and the former vice chair for civic engagement and voter participation at the DNC. Brazile is founder and managing director of Brazile & Associates LLC, a consulting, grassroots advocacy, and training firm based in Washington, DC. She was a fellow at Harvard’s Institute of Politics in 2001.While at the Shorenstein Center, Brazile will write about understanding American democracy after the cyber-attack on the 2016 election.
Tyler Bridges, twice a member of Pulitzer Prize-winning teams, is a freelance journalist based in New Orleans who reports on Louisiana politics for the Baton Rouge/New Orleans Advocate, and also The Washington Post and Politico Magazine. He is the author of three books on Louisiana politics (the most recent, published in December 2016, is Long Shot), a 2011-12 Nieman Fellow at Harvard, and was awarded Columbia University’s Maria Moors Cabot Award in 2010 for his 10 years of foreign reporting in South America. While at the Shorenstein Center, Bridges will write about the role of conservative bloggers in debunking mainstream news stories.
Claes H. de Vreese is Professor and Chair of Political Communication in the Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR), University of Amsterdam. He is the founding director of the Center for Politics and Communication, and the editor in chief of Political Communication. His research interests include the effects of news, public opinion and European integration, effects of campaigning on elections, referendums, and direct democracy. He has published more than 150 articles in peer-reviewed journals, and frequently appears in news media. While at the Shorenstein Center, de Vreese will write about the changing nature of populist communication.
Kathleen Hall Jamieson is director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania and the Elizabeth Ware Packard Professor of Communication at the university’s Annenberg School for Communication. Jamieson is a co-founder of FactCheck.org and its subsidiary site, SciCheck, which monitors political speech for the misuse of science. She has authored or co-authored 15 books, including The Obama Victory and Spiral of Cynicism. While at the Shorenstein Center, Jamieson will explore the role of the press in reinforcing democratic discourse norms.
The Walter Shorenstein Media and Democracy Fellowship, established in 2013, brings high-profile figures at the forefront of media, politics, and policy to the Kennedy School to work on timely issues.
Tom Wheeler, Walter Shorenstein Media and Democracy Fellow for the 2017-18 academic year, served as the Chairman of the FCC from 2013 to 2017 under President Obama. For more than three decades, Wheeler has been involved with new telecommunications networks and services, experiencing the revolution in telecommunications as a policy expert, an advocate, and a businessman. As an entrepreneur, he started or helped start multiple companies offering cable, wireless, and video communications services. While at the Shorenstein Center, Wheeler will do research and teach a study group on the intersection of public policy and transformational technology.
The Entrepreneurship Fellows program, established in fall 2016, invites experienced technology entrepreneurs to provide guidance and mentorship to Harvard students.
Wael Ghonim, Entrepreneurship Fellow, is a computer engineer, internet activist, and social entrepreneur. He is best known for his role in the Egyptian revolution in 2011, and he is the author of Revolution 2.0: The Power of the People is Greater than the People in Power. Ghonim worked for Google, heading their marketing and product operations in the Middle East. In 2015, he co-founded the online community Parlio, which was acquired by Quora. Ghonim was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, was named one of Time’s 100 most influential people in 2011, and received the 2011 Profile in Courage Award from the Kennedy Library Foundation. While at the Shorenstein Center, Ghonim will research the impact of social media algorithms on political and social discourse, and meet with students.
Visiting Faculty
E.J. Dionne, Jr. will be the William H. Bloomberg Visiting Professor with a joint appointment at Harvard’s Divinity School, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and the Harvard Kennedy School, affiliated with the Shorenstein Center. Dionne writes about politics for The Washington Post. He is also a government professor at Georgetown University and a frequent commentator on politics on NPR, ABC, and MSNBC. His new book, One Nation Under Trump, co-authored with Norman J. Ornstein and Thomas E. Mann, will be published in September 2017. Dionne will teach a course entitled Religion in America’s Political Conscience and at the Ballot Box.
Andy Burness, Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy, is founder and president of Burness, a mission-driven global communications firm supporting nonprofits. Before starting his firm, Burness was the primary spokesperson for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and served as public information officer for the President’s Commission on Medical Ethics. Burness will teach a course entitled Strategic Communications for Policy Change.
Andrew Rosenthal, Visiting Murrow Lecturer of the Practice of Press and Public Policy, is the former editorial page editor for The New York Times, a role he held for nine years. He was previously the assistant managing editor and the foreign editor for the Times, and served as the national editor for six months in 2000, supervising coverage of the presidential election and the post-election recount. Rosenthal will teach a course on race and media in the U.S.
About the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy
The Shorenstein Center is a research center based at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, with a mission to study and analyze the power of media and technology and its impact on governance, public policy, and politics. Research, courses, fellowships, public events, and engagement with students, scholars, and journalists form the core of the Center.
Media contact:
Nilagia McCoy, Communications Director
Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy
nilagia_mccoy@hks.harvard.edu or 617-495-2233
