Danielle Allen
Danielle Susan Allen (born November 3, 1971) is an American classicist and political scientist. She is the James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University.[1][2] She is also the former Director of the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University.
Danielle Allen
November 3, 1971
William B. Allen (father)
Kluge Prize (2020)
Francis Parkman Prize (2015)
- A Situation of Punishment (1996)
- Intricate Democracy (2001)
Prior to joining the faculty at Harvard in 2015, Allen was UPS Foundation Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.[3][4] Allen is the daughter of political scientist William B. Allen.[5]
Allen was a contributing columnist at The Washington Post until she announced in December 2020 that she was exploring a run for Governor of Massachusetts in 2022.[6][7][8] She formally announced her campaign for the Democratic Party nomination in June 2021, but then dropped out of the race in February 2022.[9][10]
Early life and education[edit]
Allen was born in 1971[11] in Takoma Park, Maryland.[12] She is the daughter of political scientist William B. Allen. Her mother was a librarian and her parents married at a time when interracial marriage was illegal.[13] Her ancestors were slaves and she is mixed-raced. Allen's grandfather was a Baptist preacher who helped found the first NAACP chapter in North Florida and her great-grandmother was a suffragette.[14]
Allen attended Claremont High School in California.[5][15] She then matriculated at Princeton University, where she obtained a Bachelor of Arts in classics, summa cum laude, in 1993 with membership in Phi Beta Kappa.[16] Allen completed a senior thesis titled "The State of Judgment" under the supervision of Andre Laks.[17]
Allen received a Marshall Scholarship to study at King's College at the University of Cambridge, where she received a Master of Philosophy (M.Phil.) and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in classics in 1994 and 1996, respectively.[2] Her dissertation was titled "A Situation of Punishment: The Politics and Ideology of Athenian Punishment".[18] Allen then pursued further graduate studies at Harvard University, earning a Master of Arts (M.A.) in government in 1998 and a Ph.D. in government in 2001.[2] Her second dissertation was titled "Intricate Democracy: Hobbes, Ellison, and Aristotle on Distrust, Rhetoric, and Civic Friendship".[19]
Political career[edit]
Allen announced in December 2020 that she would explore a candidacy in the 2022 Massachusetts gubernatorial race.[34] She announced on February 15, 2022, that she had no path, and ended her campaign on "pure math."[10][35]
Personal life[edit]
Allen was born in Takoma Park, Maryland, U.S.,[12] but was raised in Claremont, California where her father taught at Harvey Mudd College.[36] She graduated from Claremont High School.[37]
Her father, William B. Allen, is a political philosopher and former chairman of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.[38] Her mother, Susan, was a research librarian.[36] She is married to James Doyle and has two children.[25]