People

Leadership

Jonathan Metzl

Jonathan Metzl

Director

Frederick B. Rentschler II Chair
Professor of Medicine, Health & Society and Sociology
Professor of Sociology

Dr. Metzl is a professor, psychiatrist, and leading scholar on mental illness and gun violence, with a particular focus on gender and race. He appears widely in mainstream media as an expert and is the author of several books, including the award-winning Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment is Killing America’s Heartland.

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John Geer

John Geer

Senior Advisor to the Chancellor

A professor of political science, John Geer is a nationally renowned expert on presidential politics and elections. In January 2021 he helped launch and currently oversees the Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy, a trans-institutional initiative that aims to overcome political polarization through research and evidence-based discourse. Geer is a founder of both the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions and the influential Vanderbilt Poll, which conducts surveys in Tennessee and Nashville to assess the public’s thinking on topics of interest to citizens, policymakers and elected officials. In his new role, Geer will continue to co-direct the Vanderbilt Poll with Joshua Clinton, the Abby and Jon Winkelried Professor and professor of political science.

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Sarah Igo

Sarah Igo

Dean of Strategic Initiatives, College of Arts and Science

Sarah E. Igo is the Andrew Jackson Professor of History and the Dean of Strategic Initiatives for the College of Arts and Science. She received her A.B. in Social Studies from Harvard University and her Ph.D. in History from Princeton University. Professor Igo’s primary research interests are in modern American cultural, intellectual, legal and political history, the history of the human sciences, the sociology of knowledge, and the history of the public sphere.

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Visiting Fellows

Sigal Ben-Porath

Sigal Ben-Porath

Professor of Literacy, Culture, and International Education Division, University of Pennsylvania

Ben-Porath is an expert in democratic theory and practice and how institutions like schools and universities can sustain and advance democracy. Her areas of expertise include the philosophy of education and political philosophy. She has written and published six books, including her most recent Cancel Wars: How Universities can Foster Free Speech, Promote Inclusion, and Renew Democracy.

Jenn Carlson

Jenn Carlson

Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Arizona

Carlson is a MacArthur Fellow and an expert on the politics of guns. She is the author of three books; has been published in The New York Times, Detroit News, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post; and has appeared on NPR and PBS as an expert on guns in America.

Maria Hinjosa

Maria Hinojosa

Journalist and Producer, Latino USA/Futuro Media, The Texas Tribune, PBS’s Frontline

Ms. Hinojosa is the anchor and executive producer of the Peabody Award-winning show, Latino USA, distributed by PRX, and the co-host of In The Thick, Futuro Media’s award-winning political podcast. As a journalist and filmmaker, she has informed millions about the changing cultural and political landscape of the contemporary U.S. Hinojosa the director of a new film on Mexican-Americans, guns, and Uvalde, entitled “After Uvalde: Guns, Grief, & Texas Politics.”

Jonathan Rauch

Jonathan Rauch

Senior Fellow – Governance Studies, The Brookings Institution

Jonathan Rauch is a senior fellow in the Governance Studies program and the author of eight books and many articles on public policy, culture, and government. He is a contributing writer of The Atlantic and recipient of the 2005 National Magazine Award, the magazine industry’s equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize. His many Brookings publications include the 2021 book The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth, as well as the 2015 ebook Political Realism: How Hacks, Machines, Big Money, and Back-Room Deals Can Strengthen American Democracy. Other books include The Happiness Curve: Why Life Gets Better after 50 (2018) and Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America (2004). He has also authored research on political parties, marijuana legalization, LGBT rights and religious liberty, and more.

Faculty Advisory Board, Project on Open Dialogue

Larry Bartels, A&S — Political Science, Public Policy
Democracy Erodes from the Top, 2023; Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age, 2nd ed., 2018; Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government, 2017

Nicole Hemmer, A&S — History; Director, Rogers Center for Presidential Studies
Partisans: The Conservative Revolutionaries Who Remade American Politics in the 1990s, 2022; Messengers of the Right: A History of Conservative Media, 2016

Christopher Loss, Peabody College — History, Public Policy, Higher Education
Robert’s Rules of Order and Why It Matters for Colleges and Universities Today, 2021; The Convergence of K-12 and Higher Education, 2016; Between Citizens and the State: The Politics of American Higher Education in the Twentieth Century, 2012

Jonathan Metzl, A&S — Sociology; Psychiatry; Director, Medicine, Health and Society
Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment is Killing America’s Heartland, 2020; The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease, 2011; Prozac on the Couch, 2005

Dana Nelson, A&S — English
Commons Democracy: Reading the Politics of Participation in the Early United States, 2020; Bad for Democracy: How the Presidency Undermines the Power of the People, 2008; National Manhood: Capitalist Citizenship and the Fraternity of White Men, 1998

David Owens, Owen School — Management and Innovation; Director of the Wond’ry
Creative People Must Be Stopped! Six Ways We Stop Innovation Without Even Trying, 2011

Ganesh Sitamarin, Law School — Economic Policy, Constitutional Law
The Great Democracy: How to Fix Our Politics, Unrig the Economy, and Unite America, 2019; The Public Option, 2019; The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution, 2017

Paul Stob, A&S — Communication Studies; Director, Program in American Studies
Intellectual Populism: Democracy, Inquiry, and the People, 2020; William James and the Art of Popular Statement, 2013; The Art of Public Speaking, 2012

Lisa Thompson, Divinity School — Black Homiletics and Liturgics
Preaching the Headlines, 2022; Ingenuity: Preaching as the Outsider, 2018

Shatema Threadcraft, A&S — Philosophy, Gender & Sexuality Studies
Intimate Justice: The Black Female Body and the Body Politic, 2016