J. Mark Hansen, Derek Douglas Appointed to Chicago Harris
J. Mark Hansen, the Charles L. Hutchinson Distinguished Service Professor in Political Science, and Derek Douglas, the University of Chicago’s Vice President for Civic Engagement, have received appointments to the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy.
Hansen, whose research has focused on interest groups, citizen activism and public opinion, will join the Chicago Harris faculty. Douglas, who was President Obama’s senior adviser on urban policy from 2009 to 2011, will join Chicago Harris as a Senior Fellow.
One of the nation's leading scholars of American politics, John Mark Hansen is the author of two books: Mobilization, Participation and Democracy in America with Steven Rosenstone – for which he received the Outstanding Book Award from the National Conference of Black Political Scientists; and Gaining Access: Congress and the Farm Lobby, 1919-1981. In 1999, he received the Heinz Eulau Award from the American Political Science Association for the Best Article Published in the American Political Science Review in 1998. In 2003, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In addition to his distinguished scholarship, Hansen is an experienced administrator. He is currently a Senior Advisor to President Zimmer and has previously served as Dean of the Social Sciences Division, Chairman of the Political Science Department, and Associate Provost for Education and Research.
As a Senior Fellow, Derek Douglas will contribute to Chicago Harris’s scholarship and training in urban policy. Before coming to the University of Chicago, where he leads its effort to expand civic partnerships and create a broader intellectual and cultural engagement with the City of Chicago, Douglas served as Special Assistant to the President for Urban Affairs. In that role, he was one of the chief architects of President Obama’s agenda to strengthen the nation’s cities and metropolitan areas. A graduate of the Yale School of Law, Douglas also has served in senior positions in the New York State governor’s office, the Center for American Progress and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
Douglas’s and Hansen’s appointments are effective immediately.
