School of Government and Policy

William Howell is inaugural Dean of the School of Government and Policy at Johns Hopkins University, where he also holds an appointment in the Department of Political Science. William has written widely on separation-of-powers issues and American political institutions, especially the presidency. He currently is working on research projects on separation of powers issues, the institutional foundations of effective government, and emergent threats to democracy.

William is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the American Academy of Sciences and Letters, a 2023 Guggenheim Fellow, and a former fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. Before coming to Johns Hopkins, William was a faculty member in the Harris School of Public Policy and Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago, the government department at Harvard University, and the political science department at the University of Wisconsin. In 2000, he received a PhD in political science from Stanford University.