Sociologist Ruth Braunstein will become the next Director of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University, effective Aug. 1.
University leaders announced this month that Braunstein was selected following a nationwide search that began last fall. She will replace political scientist and 2025 MacArthur Fellow Hahrie Han, who has led the institute since 2019 and will remain on the faculty of both the SNF Agora Institute and the university’s political science department.
According to the Hub, the university’s in-house news source, Braunstein came to Hopkins in the summer of 2025 as an SNF Agora Institute Professor of Sociology. Before joining Hopkins, she was a faculty member at the University of Connecticut for 12 years. She also served as that university’s Director of Undergraduate Studies and created its Meanings of Democracy Lab, where undergraduates study how citizens resist threats to democracy.
The SNF 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.”
The institute draws its name from the ancient Athenian agora, a forum for debate, disagreement, and deliberation in ancient Greece. Scholars affiliated with Hopkins’ institute study the behavioral, organizational, and institutional foundations of democracy; develop and test interventions; and share lessons learned to promote civic engagement and inclusive dialogue. The institute has 15 tenure-track faculty; six teaching, research, and practice faculty; and at least 10 visiting fellows per academic year.
The Hub called Braunstein “a nationally recognized scholar who studies democracy, pluralism, religion and civic engagement.” It said her scholarship focuses on “how people participate in democratic society, navigate disagreement and build community across differences.”
‘Ideal leader’
“We are thrilled to have Ruth Braunstein take on this important role,” Hopkins President Ron Daniels told the Hub. “Ruth brings a deeply informed perspective on the complexities of global democratic societies and the role of citizens in sustaining them. Ruth is the ideal leader to build on the critical work of the SNF Agora Institute as democratic nations face powerful disruptions and extraordinary opportunity. I am truly grateful to our inaugural director Hahrie Han and to the Stavros Niarchos Foundation for helping bring to fruition our shared dream of a modern agora, embracing the democratic principles of open dialogue, free flow of ideas and pluralistic engagement across multiple viewpoints.”
“Ruth is a highly accomplished sociology scholar and interdisciplinary research leader whose work sheds light on some of our thorniest contemporary debates,” Interim Provost Lainie Rutkow, co-chair of the university’s search committee, told the Hub. “In her public-facing scholarship, she opens spaces for conversations that extend far beyond university walls. Under her leadership, the SNF Agora Institute will continue to expand its range and reach at a crucial moment for public discourse and global democracy.”
Braunstein earned a bachelor’s degree at Georgetown University and a master’s degree and PhD at New York University. She chairs the board of directors of the Public Religion Research Institute and previously served as president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion.
Braunstein is the author of My Tax Dollars: The Morality of Taxpaying in America, published in 2025, and Prophets and Patriots: Faith in Democracy Across the Political Divide, published in 2017. She is a co-editor of Religion and Progressive Activism: New Stories About Faith and Politics.
She writes for outlets including The Guardian; Religion News Service, and The Conversation, and has a weekly Substack called “Democracy Is Hard.” In 2025, she produced and hosted a six-part documentary podcast series, entitled “When the Wolves Came: Evangelicals Resisting Extremism,” which explores the rise of Christian nationalism within American evangelicalism. The podcast won gold recognition in the documentary category at the Signal Awards in 2025 and was named one of the 20 best podcasts of 2025 by The Atlantic.
‘Immense honor’
“It is an immense honor to be named the next director of the SNF Agora Institute, and I am deeply grateful to President Daniels, Interim Provost Rutkow, and [Krieger School of Arts and Sciences Dean Chris] Celenza for entrusting me with the opportunity to lead the Institute into its next chapter,” The Hub quoted Braunstein as saying.
“It has been a privilege to work every day with my faculty and staff colleagues to better understand the opportunities and challenges of democratic life and to promote civil dialogue and civic engagement, and I could not be more excited to continue that collaboration in this new role,” Braunstein said. “I am immensely grateful to my predecessor Hahrie Han for her bold leadership and vision, and of course to the Stavros Niarchos Foundation for making the institute and its work possible and for its ongoing support and partnership.”
