Danielle Allen

Danielle Allen is the James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University. She is the Director of the Democratic Knowledge Project at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and of the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation at the Harvard Kennedy School. She was a lead author on the Roadmap to Educating for American Democracy, a framework for securing excellence in history and civic education for all learners, K-12, released in 2021. In her book Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality (Liveright, 2015), she reflects on personal teaching experience, history, and political philosophy to draw lessons for today about citizenship, freedom, equality, and constitutional democracy. 

Widely known for her work on justice and citizenship in both ancient Athens and modern America, Allen is the author of The World of Prometheus: The Politics of Punishing in Democratic Athens (2000), Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship since Brown vs. the Board of Education (2004), Why Plato Wrote (2010), Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality (2014), Education and Equality (2016), and Cuz: The Life and Times of Michael A. (2017). She is the co-editor of the award-winning Education, Justice, and Democracy (2013, with Rob Reich) and From Voice to Influence: Understanding Citizenship in the Digital Age (2015, with Jennifer Light). She is a former Chair of the Mellon Foundation Board, past Chair of the Pulitzer Prize Board, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.

Allen has chaired numerous commission processes and is a lead author on influential policy roadmaps, including Pursuing Excellence on a Foundation of Inclusion; Roadmap to Pandemic Resilience; Pandemic Resilience: Getting it Done; Our Common Purpose: Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century; and Education for American Democracy: Excellence in History and Civics for all Learners K-12.  She was for many years a contributing columnist for the Washington Post, and writes for the Atlantic.

Allen holds a Ph.D. and MA in government from Harvard University and Ph.D. and MA in classics from King’s College, University of Cambridge.

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