Highlight on Faculty

The Master of Arts in Government program is fortunate to have the minds and skills of many of Washington's political leaders teaching in its program. Faculty include lawyers, policy makers, advisors, consultants, and reporters, as well as full-time Johns Hopkins faculty members. Working from the inside and outside of our American government, these instructors prepare students with information and techniques critical to success in our complex political environment.

Program Chair

Benjamin Ginsberg, PhD, is the David Bernstein Professor of Political Science, Director of the Center for the Study of American Government, and Chair of the Government Program of Advanced Academic Programs at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of numerous books on American government and politics including: Downsizing Democracy, The Fatal Embrace; Embattled Democracy; Democrats Return to Power; Politics by Other Means, The Captive Public; Do Elections Matter?; American Government: Freedom and Power; The Consequences of Consent; and Poliscide. The textbook he co-authors with Theodore J. Lowi is the most widely used American government textbook in the country.

Associate Program Chairs

Kathy Wagner Hill, PhD, is the Associate Program Chair for the Government Program at Johns Hopkins University. She is the lead editor and contributor of Environmental Management in Healthcare Facilities and the author of several articles on environmental policy making. She was a Congressional Fellow in the Office of Technology Assessment and later a policy analyst and project director there. As an environmental policy analyst and consultant her work in the U.S. and abroad has focuses on pollution prevention, waste management, energy efficiency, climate change, and environmental education.

Faculty Members

Charles Bingman is a former federal government executive at the Office of Management and Budget, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the Department of Transportation. He has consulted with governments in 13 different countries in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, China, and Japan. He is the author of three books, including "Why Governments Go Wrong", and numerous articles on U.S. and foreign public administration. Professor Bingman was the recipient of the first annual Excellence in Teaching Award for the Government Program in 2003.
Peter Black has been teaching management, criminal justice, public administration, and critical incident management for twenty-seven years He is a Supervisory Special Agent and has been involved in federal law enforcement for more than thirty-seven years. Over the past seventeen years he has served as the Inquiry Director or Special Agent-in-Charge for ten major investigative task forces. For example, for two years, he was a Team Leader for the investigation into the events at the 1991 Tailhook Association in Las Vegas, NV. He spent a year as the Special Agent-in-Charge of the Department of Defense portion of "Filegate", which was part of the Independent Counsel's investigation into the "Whitewater" matter. He was the lead Special Agent of an Inquiry conducted at the direction of the President's Foreign Intelligence Oversight Advisory Board into allegations that US Intelligence was involved in the torture and killing of Americans in Guatemala. He was the Inquiry Director for an investigation into the destruction of the ammunition dump at Khamisiyah, Iraq. It was the destruction of this dump that allegedly caused Gulf War Syndrome. He was the Inquiry Director into allegations of misconduct by the senior leadership of a federal law enforcement agency. and the Inquiry Director of an Inquiry involving allegations of misconduct involving personnel assigned to the US counter-narcotics effort in Latin America. He served as a Team Leader of a forty person team, composed of federal, state, and local law enforcement personnel, as well as FAA and NTSB personnel, conducting search and rescue operations in the wake of the bombing of the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Previously, he worked undercover narcotics and weapons for about four years and was the Special Agent-in-Charge of the US Forces-Korea Hostage Negotiation and SWAT teams during the 1988 Summer Olympics. He worked as a Protective Services Officer for a protection detail for a time and served as the Acting Director of Field Operations for a federal law enforcement agency region that spanned 23 states and the District of Columbia.
Mark Blyth is Associate Professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University. He specializes in political economy and the comparative politics of advanced industrial states. He is the author of Great Transformations: The Rise and Decline of Embedded Liberalism to be published in 2002 by Cambridge University Press.
Richard Broughton is a lawyer in the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he advises senior Department leaders and federal prosecutors on legal and constitutional issues related to federal criminal law and capital punishment. He also assists government lawyers in preparing capital cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and has represented the United States in appellate and post-conviction capital litigation. Previously, he served on the law school faculties at Stetson University and Texas Wesleyan University, teaching in the areas of Constitutional Law and Criminal Procedure. Before becoming a law professor, he served as Assistant Attorney General of Texas and clerked for the chief judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. His scholarship focuses on constitutional law, presidential powers, and criminal justice, and has been published in law reviews and journals across the country.
William Clinger represented Pennsylvania's Fifth District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1978 to 1996. He was Chairman of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, Vice Chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and Chairman of the House Wednesday Group. Prior to his congressional service, Mr. Clinger was the Chief Counsel to the U.S. Department of Commerce, Economic Development Administration.
Brett Decker is Senior Vice President for the Office of Communications at the Export-Import Bank of the United States. The office encompasses the Bank's public affairs, external affairs and marketing divisions. Previously, he was based in Hong Kong as an editor and editorial page writer for The Wall Street Journal . He has held positions on the Editorial Board of the Washington Times, as national political reporter for the Evans & Novak Inside Report and television producer for the cable program Insights with Robert Novak. Decker served as a speechwriter to Majority Whip (later Majority Leader) Tom DeLay in the U.S. House of Representatives. A former Governor of the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents' Club, Decker has written hundreds of articles for publications such as the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the International Herald Tribune, Far Eastern Economic Review, and International Economy. A native of Michigan, Decker has a bachelor's degree in political science from Albion College, a master's in government from Johns Hopkins University, and a master's in national security and strategic studies from the U.S. Naval War College. He is an adjunct Professor of Government at Johns Hopkins.
Daniel Guttman, J.D., is a Washington DC attorney whose practice areas include public management and privatization, utility restructuring, False Claims Act, civil rights, environment, safety and health litigation and regulation. He was a Commissioner of the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, was the Executive Director of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, and special counsel to Senator David Pryor. He is the co-author of Shadow Government and many articles, and a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. He recently was in China on a Fulbright Fellowship, and is currently a Visiting Professor/Scholar at Tsinghua University School of Public Policy and Public Management, Shanghai Jia Tong University School of Law, and the Peking University School fo Law. Professor Guttman was the recipient of the Excellence in Teaching Award for Government in 2004.
Robert Guttman Robert J. Guttman is the Founder and Director of the Center on Politics & Foreign Relations (CPFR) at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. He teaches courses on politics, the media and foreign policy at the Johns Hopkins University School of Government. He currently also writes a regular column on politics for The Huffington Post. Previously, he was editor-in-chief of TransAtlantic: Europe, America & the World, at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at SAIS, and also editor -in-chief of Europe Magazine. He is the author/editor of the book Europe in the New Century: Visions of an Emerging Superpower published in 2001. Guttman has been a frequent guest on various radio and TV talk programs, including CNN, CNN International and C-SPAN.
Douglas Harris is Associate Professor of Political Science at Loyola College. His work focuses on Congress, media politics, political parties and public policy. His publications include articles on legislative, presidential, and party politics in Political Science Quarterly, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Congress & the Presidency, Presidential Studies Quarterly, Extension of Remarks, and American Politics Research. He has contributed chapters in edited collections on congressional elections and public trust in government.
Lisa Jaeger is a partner in the Government Relations, Advocacy and Strategy section of the law firm of Bracewell & Giuliani. Her practice focuses on environmental and natural resources law and policy. Previously, she was acting general counsel for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and prior to that was deputy general counsel there.
Jack Kangas, PhD, is a former strategic planner and arms control negotiator with the Pentagon and State Department. His current teaching and research interests are focused on the proliferation of nuclear weapons, nuclear terrorism, and U.S. security policy in the Middle East, with specific reference to Turkey. His advanced degrees are from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.S. in Economics and Social Science) and Stanford University (Ph.D. in Political Science)
John Kornacki is a faculty member of the Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University and a contributing write for the congressional newspaper, The Hill. He was the first staff director of the Legislative Resource Center for the U.S. House of Representatives and served as executive director for the nonpartisan, Everett McKinley Dirksen Congressional Leadership Research Center in Illinois.
Mark Lowenthal, PhD, an internationally recognized expert on intelligence, is President and CEO of the Intelligence & Security Academy, LLC, a national security education, training and consulting company. From 2002-2005, Dr. Lowenthal served as the Assistant Director of Central Intelligence for Analysis and Production and also as the Vice Chairman for Evaluation on the National Intelligence Council. Prior to these duties, he served as Counselor to the Director of Central Intelligence. Dr. Lowenthal’s other government service includes: staff director of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (104th Congress, 1995-97); the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), as both an office director and as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State; and Senior Specialist in U.S. Foreign Policy at the Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress. Dr. Lowenthal has written extensively on intelligence and national security issues, including five books and over 90 articles or studies. His book, Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy (Congressional Quarterly Press, 3rd ed., October 2005), has become the standard college and graduate school textbook on the subject. He has also written a fantasy novel. Dr. Lowenthal received his B.A. from Brooklyn College and his Ph.D. in history from Harvard University. Dr. Lowenthal was awarded the National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal, the Intelligence Community’s highest award. In 2006, he received AFCEA’s Distinguished Service Award for service to the Intelligence Community. In 1988, Dr. Lowenthal was the Grand Champion on Jeopardy!, the television quiz show.
Glenn Marcus is a history graduate of Johns Hopkins University, where he studied with David Donald, Alfred Chandler, Steven Ambrose, and William F. Albright. He served 13 years at the National Endowment for the Humanities, where he worked in public programs on grantsmaking ranging from museum exhibitions to youth projects to media efforts by emerging filmmakers. Marcus moved on to PBS for the next 12 years, where his portfolio included series such as THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE, NOVA, and countless other primetime shows. Among many special assignments, he coordinated national programming for the 50th anniversaries of WWII and the Korean War, plus efforts on Vietnam and the Holocaust. He is the only national PBS staff member ever to receive the Knight Journalism Fellowship. He now consults on a variety of media projects, and has taught graduate seminars on the history of the documentary, war of the screen, and the history of Washington, DC. He has lectured at schools ranging from UC Santa Cruz to the University of Pennsylvania, and has run plenary sessions at two recent academic conferences. He has co-production and scripting credits for the PBS national primetime programs THE WORLD WAR II MEMORIAL and THE MARCH OF THE BONUS ARMY. His films in progress are WASHINGTON, DC: SYMBOL AND CITY, and HALLOWED GROUND, on the 24 US military cemeteries overseas.
Susan Morris, PhD, received her B.A. degree in Economics (with Honors) from Columbia University and her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology from Johns Hopkins. She has several years' experience in the fields of publishing, economic research, the marketing of consumer and industrial products, and as an entrepreneur. She has also been an advisor and consulting editor in producing science documentaries for public broadcasting. Her published work examines how 19th-century scientists crafted their scientific writing to persuade and appeal to a lay public. Her current research includes scientific communication, entrepreneurship in science, and the history of communications technology. She teaches Thesis, Introduction to Graduate Work, Directed Readings in Communications, and Publishing: Foundation and Future.
Willamson Murray is a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Defense Analysis. He is Professor Emeritus of History from Ohio State University and has taught at a number of other institutions including the Air War College, the United States Military Academy, the Naval War College, and the U.S. Naval Academy. His recent books include: A War to be Won: Fighting the Second World War; The Dynamics of Military Revolution, 1300-2050; and The Iraq War, A Military History.
Douglas Nelson, PhD, is Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary of CropLife America the not-for-profit trade organization representing the major manufacturers, formulators and distributors of crop protection and pest control products, including bioengineered products with crop production and protection characteristics. Mr. Nelson is also President of CropLife Foundation, a 501(c) (3) research and educational foundation.Mr. Nelson has recently been appointed a member of the United States Industry Trade Advisory Committee on Intellectual Property Rights charged with advising the U.S. Trade Representative and the Secretary of Commerce on intellectual property rights aspects of U.S. Trade Policy. A Phi Beta Kappa and Summa cum laude graduate in history from RutgersUniversity, Mr. Nelson earned M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in modern European history from ColumbiaUniversityand a J.D. from the Columbia University School of Law.
Ed Perlman began his professional teaching career in the Alexandria City Schools, where he instructed in English and humanities and was principal for the European campus of a summer school program. In 1977, he left full-time teaching to become a design and construction consultant, first for his own private firm, then for the Murdock Development Co., Baltimore and Los Angeles . He became vice president at Murdock, responsible for architecture, design, construction coordination and marketing for many projects. He also specialized in historic preservation. He returned to his own company from 1990-194 and in 1995 began teaching again in the English Department at Prince George's Community College. He writes fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, and is now the Writing Program's faculty advisor for poetry students. His poetry, essays, and book reviews have appeared in various reviews and publications including Explorations, Passages Northwest, The Sewanee Theological Review, and The Living Church. He was a participant in the Sewanee Writers' Conference in 1995, and 1998. He studied with the poet Anthony Hecht during a four-week associate artist residency at The Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna, Florida. He is a contributing author to Alexandria, a Town in Transition 1800-1900 (Alexandria Historical Society). The DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities and the NEA awarded him an artist fellowship grant for 2006 for his poetry. He lives in Washington, D.C. He was one of the first winners of the Writing Program's Faculty Award for Teaching Excellence.
Alexander Rosenthal , Ph.D, received his Bachelor's degree in Philosophy from Princeton University in 1994. In 2001 he completed his Master's degree in Philosophy at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium, where he went on to complete his doctorate in 2005 working under the Center for Ethics, Social, and Political Philosophy within the Higher Institute of Philosophy. He has a forthcoming book entitled Crown Under Law which deals with the intellectual origins of modern constitutionalism focusing on John Locke and Richard Hooker. He has taught at a number of colleges and universities including Leuven, Loyola College (Maryland), and Catholic University of America (CUA). In 2007 he became a program coordinator for the Advanced Academic Program at Johns Hopkins University, where also teaches courses in political theory. Topics of interest include the European philosophical tradition (Greek/medieval/early modern), Liberal democracy and its ideological critics, and the interaction of religion and American political culture.
Ariel Ilan Roth, PhD, is the associate director of the graduate Certificate Program in National Securities Studies. A veteran of the Israeli military and a graduate of the Hebrew University, Dr. Roth earned his doctorate from the Johns Hopkins University in international relations. Dr. Roth's specialties include strategic studies and international relations theory and he regularly teaches courses in Military Strategy and Modern War for the Government program at Johns Hopkins. Dr. Roth's has published in both professional academic journals as well as providing occasional commentary on foreign policy and security related topics for both national and international newspapers.
John Samples directs the Center for Representative Government at the Cato Institute. He has written articles on election reform, direct democracy, campaign finance regulation, and the role of religion in James Madison's political theory. He is currently editing a collection of papers on James Madison's legacy for limited government and American liberalism. He was previously the Director of the Georgetown University Press and before that was Vice President of The Twentieth Century Fund.
David Satter is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and is also a visiting scholar of the Johns Hopkins University Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, a senior fellow of the Jamestown Foundation, and a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. He specialies in the Soviet Union and Russia in the post communist era. He is the author of Age of Delirium: The Decline and Fall of the Soviet Union (Alfred A. Knopf, 1996; in paperback, Yale Press, 2001) and Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State (Yale Press, 2003). He has contributed articles and commentary pieces to numerous magazines and newspapers, including Wall Street Journal editorial page, Encounter, Los Angeles Times, National Interest, National Review, New Republic, New York Review of Books, Reader's Digest, and Washington Times. Previously, he was the Moscow correspondent for the London Financial Times. After completing his term in Moscow, Satter was a special correspondent on Soviet affairs for the Wall Street Journal.
Andrew Selee is Director of the Woodrow Wilson Center's Mexico Institute, which promotes research and dialogue on U.S.-Mexico relations. His edited and co-edited volumes include Mexico's Politics and Society in Transition; Decentralization, Democratic Governance, and Civil Society in Comparative Perspective; Perceptions and Misconceptions in U.S.-Mexico Relations; and Invisble No More: Mexican Migrant Civic Participation in the United States. He is a contributing editor to the Library of Congress's Handbook of Latin American Studies and former professional staff in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Adam Sheingate is assistant professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University. His research interests include American political development, interest groups, and comparative public policy. He is the author of The Rise of the Agricultural Welfare State: Institutions and Interest Group Power in the United States, France, and Japan.
Robert Shogan was the national political correspondent for the Los Angeles Times Washington Bureau for 30 years. His books include: Bad News: Where the Press Goes Wrong in the Making of the President; The Double-Edged Sword: How Character Makes and Ruins Presidents, from Washington to Clinton; Hard Bargain: How FDR Twisted Churchill's Arm, Evaded the Law and Changed the American Presidency; and Riddle of Power: Presidential Leadership from Truman to Bush. His most recent book, The Battle of Blair Mountain, was cited a one of the "notable books of the year" in 2004 by the Christian Science Monitor.
Michael Siegel, Ph.D, is a Senior Training Specialist at the Federal Judicial Center where he managed an award-winning leadership development program for federal probation and pretrial service officers. He specializes in areas of change management, negotiation and conflict management skills, presentation skills, automation management, and leadership development. He was formerly the Assistant Dean of Faculty Development at the University of Maryland at College Park. Professor Siegel was the recipient of the Excellence in Teaching Award for Government in 2005.
Thomas Stanton is a Washington DC attorney who focuses on public institutions and their capacity to deliver services effectively. He specializes in federal credit and benefits programs, design of government organizations and regulatory oversight. He is a member of the board of directors of the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA), past Chair of the NAPA Standing Panel on Executive Organization and Management, and a former member of the federal Senior Executive Service. His writings on public administration include articles in Public Administration Review, The Administrative Law Journal, American Banker, and The Wall Street Journal. He is coeditor with Benjamin Ginsberg of Making Government Manageable: Executive Organization and Management in the 21st Century, Johns Hopkins University Press.
Michael Uhart is currently Executive Director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Science Advisory Board and Executive Director of the Office of Laboratories and Cooperative Institutes of the NOAA Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR). He has been a NOAA employee since 1976, spending the first 19 years of his career in the National Weather Service before taking his current positions. He is also director of the multi-agency National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program where he coordinates federal acid rain monitoring, research, and integrated assessments of the acid rain control provisions of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments and reports the results to Congress.
Paul Weinstein is chief operating officer and senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute where he writes and speaks on an array of policy areas including pension and tax reform, budget and transportation policy, corporate responsibility, and political reform. He is also chief analyst at the Promontory Interfinancial Network, a financial services firm. Previously, he served as the chief of staff of the White House Domestic Policy Council and as senior advisor to the Vice President for policy planning in the Clinton-Gore Administration. He is the author of the textbook, The Art of Policy Making.
Mary Ellen Williams, J.D., serves as a judge at the United States Court of Federal Claims. Judge Williams has been selected as one of the 500 leading judges in America by Lawdragon magazine. She has resolved cases involving monetary claims founded upon the Constitution, federal statutes, regulations, or contracts with the United States, including bid protest, tax, Fifth Amendment takings, civilian and military pay, intellectual property, and Indian tribe claims.
Adam Wolfson is a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a consulting editor for Commentary. Previously, he was the Executive Editor of Public Interest. He was a consultant to the President's Council on Bioethics. He has published numerous articles and co-edited The Liberal Tradition in Focus.
Dorothea Wolfson, PhD, is the government program coordinator and has been teaching in the program since 1995. She earned her Ph.D. in Government from Cornell University. A former policy analyst for Empower America, she has published articles on Alexis de Tocqueville, as well as Thomas Jefferson, and collaborated on a book, Our Sacred Honor, with William J. Bennett. Her most recent publication was on John Locke and children's literature in The Claremont Review of Books (Summer 2006).