Former Senator Sherrod Brown, Eight Others To Join Harvard’s Institute Of Politics as Spring 2025 Fellows

Former U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown and his wife Connie Shultz, a Pulitzer-prize winning columnist, will serve as visiting fellows at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics this spring.

This year’s class of IOP fellows also includes seven resident fellows, whom IOP announced in a press release on Friday.

Two are former members of the Biden Administration: former Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su and former Senior Advisor Michael Donilon.
They will be joined by former Acting Secretary of the Health and Human Services Eric D. Hargan ’90; Joe Mitchell, the founder of Run GenZ and a former Republican Iowa State Representative; Ryan Dollar, general counsel for the National Republican Senatorial Committee; Brittany Shepherd, a political reporter at ABC News; and Ann Simmons, the former Moscow Bureau Chief at The Wall Street Journal.

“This spring’s remarkable group of fellows will engage our students in important conversations and provide valuable insight into an array of critical issues,” Director of the IOP Setti Warren wrote in the release.

The resident fellows will lead eight-week study groups over the spring semester. The study groups will discuss topics such as national political parties, governing in a divided America, and policy development.

Will M. Smialek ’27 and Zoe Yu ’27, who chair the Fellows and Study Groups Program, wrote in the press release that it is important to seek out perspectives across the ideological spectrum in the aftermath of the 2024 election — a time when democracy “seemed untethered from its founding principles.”

“Exercising the democratic muscle requires recognizing that each of our stories is equally important to the broader American experiment and understanding that democracy is not a spectator sport but an ongoing act of engagement,” Smialek and Yu wrote. “It demands that we seek a shared truth not by retreating into ideological corners but by having conversations, even when it is difficult.”

Donlion, who served as Chief Strategist on both President Biden’s 2020 and 2024 campaigns, wrote in the release that he is excited to discuss governmental affairs during “one of the most consequential periods of time in our history in America.”

“I look forward to hearing how students see it and think about it,” Donilon added.

During the eight weeks of residency, each fellow will work with students in their area of expertise. Su, who worked as a nonprofit attorney representing workers for nearly two decades, wrote in the release that she will focus on workers rights during the fellowship.

“We live in a moment where honest conversation and critical engagement on the important issues of our time, especially on workers’ rights and the well-being of working people, could not be more important,” Su said.

Hargan, who studied philosophy at Harvard, said in the press release that he hoped to “help give back to Harvard some of what the University gave me as a young man,” with a specific emphasis on opportunities in the public sector.

“It is important that students and members of the Harvard community understand how the public sector acts and reacts in the healthcare space, given the government’s central role,” he said.

Shepherd, who covered the 2024 election for ABC News, will focus on the evolution of campaigns in the digital era.

“I look forward to unpacking together what I can honestly say has been an election cycle impacted by the internet like no other,” Shepherd said in the press release. “And for us to discover the answer to questions like if “Brat”-ifying a presidential candidate was even helpful in the long run.”

Correction: January 31, 2025

A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that three spring 2025 Institute of Politics fellows served in the Biden administration. In fact, only two did.

—Staff writer Elise A. Spenner can be reached at elise.spenner@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X at @EliseSpenner.

—Staff writer Will P. Cottiss can be reached at will.cottiss@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X at @WillPCottiss.