Harvard President Garber Offered HKS Deanship To Stanford Political Scientist Jeremy Weinstein

Interim Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 offered the Harvard Kennedy School deanship to Jeremy M. Weinstein, a professor of political science at Stanford University, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Weinstein’s selection concludes a seven-month search for the school’s next dean. Weinstein would succeed outgoing HKS Dean Douglas W. Elmendorf, who announced in September that he planned to step down from the post at the end of the 2023-2024 academic year.

A University spokesperson did not confirm or deny that Weinstein had been offered the role in response to a request for comment Friday afternoon. It is unclear if the terms of the offer have been finalized.

Weinstein did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.

Weinstein was one of several outside finalists considered for the role, according to a person familiar with the search process. He was considered alongside two internal finalists: Archon Fung, director of the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, and David Deming, academic dean of the Kennedy School.

The Kennedy School has never had a woman or person of color permanently serve as dean, and Weinstein’s selection could disappoint students and faculty members who were hoping that Garber’s pick would be a historic first for the school in that regard.

However, as a political scientist, Weinstein breaks the Kennedy School’s two decade streak of having economists at its top post.

Weinstein earned both his master’s degree and doctoral degree in political economy from Harvard’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in 2001 and 2003, respectively. Weinstein joined Stanford shortly after in 2004 as an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science and received tenure in 2015.

In addition to teaching at Stanford, Weinstein founded and leads the Stanford Impact Labs, a cross-university initiative which designs evidence-based interventions to “make progress on some of the world's most pressing and persistent social challenges.”

Weinstein has also served in several roles in Washington, including most recently as a senior advisor to the U.S. Secretary of State from 2021 to 2022.

—Staff writer William C. Mao can be reached at william.mao@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @williamcmao.

—Staff writer Dhruv T. Patel can be reached at dhruv.patel@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @dhruvtkpatel.