Why you should listen
Danielle Allen studies classics, democratic theory, political sociology and the history of political thought. A professor at Harvard, she directs the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics. She has published widely on justice, government and citizenship, both in ancient Athens and modern America. She is the lead investigator for Harvard's Democratic Knowledge Project, a research and action lab that strives to strengthen democracies.
Allen graduated from Princeton University with a classics degree in 1993 and earned a PhD in classics from King's College at Cambridge University in 1996. She received a second PhD in government from Harvard in 2001. She is a former chair of the Mellon Foundation Board and the Pulitzer Prize Board and a current member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.
