Johns Hopkins University has launched a search for the next director of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Agora Institute.
Hopkins leaders announced this week that the university has assembled an 18-member search committee to find a replacement for political scientist and 2025 MacArthur Fellow Hahrie Han, who plans to step down next summer to focus on her scholarship.
According to an article in The Hub, Hopkins’ in-house news source, the Agora Institute will move into its new home on Wyman Park Drive “during the spring semester” — more than a year later than originally planned.
Construction of the four-story building began in mid-2021, more than four years ago. The design architect is the Renzo Piano Building Workshop, founded by Italian architect Renzo Piano, 88. Ron Daniels, Hopkins’ President since 2009, said earlier this year that it has been the most difficult campus construction project he has ever worked on. Part of the construction fencing has been taken down to show recent progress.
The Agora Institute was announced in 2017 after the Stavros Niarchos Foundation committed $150 million to launch an effort with Hopkins to build an academic forum dedicated to “strengthening democracy by improving civic engagement and civil discourse worldwide.”
Han, the inaugural director, has led the institute since 2019. She is one of 22 individuals from around the world who were named last month to receive a 2025 John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation fellowship, which includes a no-strings-attached “genius grant” of $800,000 over five years. She was the only Marylander on the list, the first political scientist chosen for the award since 2001, and the first Hopkins faculty member selected since 2008.
Before the MacArthur grant was announced, Han had said that she planned to move on from her role as director of the Agora Institute when her term ends at the close of the 2025-2026 academic year and that she will remain part of the Hopkins faculty.
“SNF Agora’s work reflects an essential part of the university’s mission to advance knowledge in the service of democracy and the public good,” Daniels wrote in a message to university leadership, as reported by The Hub. “We are grateful that Hahrie will continue to play an active role as a scholar and public voice on these issues and will remain a valued member of the Johns Hopkins faculty. On behalf of the university and all who have learned from and continue to be inspired by her work, we offer our sincere appreciation for her distinguished leadership.”
“It’s a great opportunity and a propitious moment for a new director to take SNF Agora into its next phase of strategic growth, building on a really strong foundation,” The Hub quoted Han as saying.
Under Han’s leadership, the Hub said, the Agora Institute has assembled a multidisciplinary faculty and staff, created new programs for students and fellows, and fostered collaborations that connect scholarship with civic life. It regularly hosts discussions and events across a range of topics, including its keystone Elijah E. Cummings Democracy and Freedom Festival, “an annual gathering of civic leaders, scholars, students, policymakers and others that explores how democratic life can thrive amid division.”
The institute has created an undergraduate major in moral and political economy, a minor in civic life, and the SNF Agora Academy for predoctoral and postdoctoral fellows. It has collaborated with organizations such as Chatham House; Open to Debate; the American Enterprise Institute; the Renew Democracy Initiative, and R Street. Its Visiting Fellows and Dissident in Residence programs have welcomed artists, journalists and civic leaders from around the world.
The 18-member search committee to identify Han’s successor will be led by co-chairs Ray Jayawardhana, Hopkins Provost and a physics and astronomy professor, and Chris Celenza, James B. Knapp Dean of the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, with support from the search firm Heidrick & Struggles.
Other members of the search committee include: Yuen Yuen Ang, Alfred Chandler Professor of Political Science; Amy Binder, SNF Agora Institute Professor of Sociology; Jacob Bruggeman, PhD in History Candidate; Aron Einbinder, BA Moral & Political Economy student; Henry Farrell; SNF Agora Institute Professor of International Affairs; Rachel Hitchcock, Associate Vice President for Development and Alumni Relations; Louis Hyman, Dorothy Ross Professor of History and Adam Levine, SNF Agora Institute Professor of Health Policy and Management.
Also, Morris Offit, a Class of 1957 graduate, Hopkins parent, member of the SNF Agora Institute Board of Overseers and inspiration for the name of the new Mo’s Place restaurant on the Homewood campus; Carmine Petrone, a Class of 2004 graduate and Hopkins Trustee; David Richelsoph, Managing Director of the SNF Agora Institute; Leah Wright Rigueur; SNF Agora Institute Associate Professor of History; Casey Russo, Stavros Niarchos Foundation; Fritz Schroeder, Senior Vice President for Development and Alumni Relations at Johns Hopkins University and Medicine; Elizabeth Smyth, Founding Executive Director of the SNF Agora Institute, and Scott Warren, SNF Agora Fellow.
Feedback and confidential nominations can be shared with the committee and the search firm via email at AgoraDirector@heidrick.com.
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