WASHINGTON — Georgetown University professors offer their issue expertise to journalists seeking interviews on a variety of subjects related to the 250 anniversary of America’s Declaration of Independence.
To request to schedule an interview, please contact Georgetown’s Office of Communications at media@georgetown.edu.
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D.C. Experts
Uwe Brandes, professor of the practice, faculty director of the Urban & Regional Planning Program and faculty director of the Georgetown Global Cities Initiative
Uwe Brandes is professor of the practice, faculty director of the Urban & Regional Planning Program, and faculty director of the Georgetown Global Cities Initiative. Additionally, he is an adjunct faculty member at the Georgetown Law Center, affiliated faculty with the Georgetown Earth Commons, and affiliated with the Science, Technology, and International Affairs program at the Walsh School of Foreign Service. Brandes is a scholar-practitioner in urban design and sustainable urban development, with more than 30 years of experience in planning, designing, and developing new buildings, the public realm, and community development partnerships. As a public official in Washington, D.C., Brandes led the creation of the Anacostia Waterfront Initiative (AWI), the award-winning urban partnership that reimagined the Anacostia River, the most polluted river in the Chesapeake Bay, as a model of socially inclusive, sustainable urban development. In 2025, Brandes received the Glenn Brown Award, granted to individuals who have dedicated their work to enhancing the quality of life in Washington, D.C.
Open to: Print, Radio and Broadcast
British Empire Experts
Darragh Gannon, assistant teaching professor of Irish History and associate director of Global Irish Studies
Darragh Gannon is Assistant Teaching Professor of Irish History and the Associate Director of Global Irish Studies. In May 2025, he was appointed as Lead Historian to IrishAmerica250 – a nationwide non-partisan initiative, supported by the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs and Northern Ireland Executive – which seeks to highlight the storied histories of Irish-American relations over the course of this commemorative year. Prof. Gannon’s research examines themes such as nationalism, immigration, conflict resolution, commemoration, diplomacy, and political mobilization. A former Fulbright scholar, he is a regular commentator for international media outlets, including the BBC, Time Magazine, Le Monde, and National Geographic.
Open to: Print, Radio and Broadcast
17th and 18th Century History Experts
Adam Rothman, professor of history and director of the Center for the Study of Slavery and Its Legacies
Dr. Adam Rothman teaches the history of the United States from the Revolution to the Civil War, with a focus on slavery and emancipation in the Atlantic world. He has published multiple books, including Facing Georgetown’s History: A Reader in Slavery, Memory, and Reconciliation, Beyond Freedom’s Reach: A Kidnapping in the Twilight of Slavery, and Slave Country: American Expansion and the Origins of the Deep South. This year, Dr. Rothman is teaching a course on the history of the United States up to the end of the Civil War. The course emphasizes the dynamics of imperial rivalry and colonial settlement; the relationships among European, African, and Indigenous peoples; economic development and regional differences; the emergence of revolutionary nationalism, the westward expansion of the United States, and the conflict over slavery that tore the nation apart.
Open to: Print, Radio and Broadcast
Chandra M Manning, professor of history and the director of the Georgetown Institute for Global History
Dr. Chandra Manning is an expert in U.S. history, specifically of the 19th century, including but not limited to the American Revolution, emancipation, slavery, citizenship and the Civil War. Her first book, “What This Cruel War Was Over: Soldiers, Slavery, and the Civil War” won the Avery O. Craven Prize awarded by the Organization of American Historians, earned Honorable Mention for the Lincoln Prize and the Virginia Literary Awards for Nonfiction, and was a finalist for the Jefferson Davis Prize and the Frederick Douglass Prize. Her second book, “Troubled Refuge: Struggling for Freedom in the Civil War”, about Civil War refugee camps where former slaves allied with the Union Army and altered the course of the war and of emancipation, won the Jefferson Davis Prize awarded by the American Civil War Museum for best book on the Civil War. With her experience as a former National Park Service Ranger, Dr. Manning has also advised historical sites, museums, and historical societies, as well as community groups in search of historical perspective.
Open to: Print, Radio and Broadcast
19th and 20th Century History Experts
Michael Kazin, a professor of history
Dr. Michael Kazin is a professor in the Department of History, with an expertise in politics, the historical backgrounds of political parties and socio-political movements in the 19th and 20th centuries. His most recent book is “What It Took to Win: A History of the Democratic Party“ (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022), which was named an Editor’s Choice by the NY Times Book Review and one of the best ten books published on U.S. history in 2022 by Kirkus Reviews. His previous book “War Against War: The American Fight for Peace, 1914-1918” (Simon and Schuster, 2017) was also named an Editor’s Choice by the New York Times Book Review and was awarded the Elise M. Boulding Prize for the best book in peace history by the Peace History Society.
Open to: Print, Radio and Broadcast
Political Theory Experts
Richard Elliott, assistant professor of government
Dr. Richard Elliott is an assistant professor in Government, specializing in political theory and the history of political thought. His research focuses on the relationship between ideas and mass political movements from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries, and on contemporary questions in democratic theory, constitutional design, philosophy of language, social theory and ideology. He is also acutely interested in methodology, political epistemology, and the foundational problems of meaning and understanding in politics. Dr. Elliott teaches courses on revolutionary political thought. One course focuses on the period from 1600 to 1815, examining the political theories associated with the English Civil War, the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and the Haitian Revolution. Another course, covering the years 1815 to 2000, addresses the liberal-nationalist revolutions of early nineteenth-century Europe and South America, as well as the Russian Revolution, the Vietnamese Revolution, and the end of apartheid in South Africa.
Open to: Print, Radio and Broadcast
Richard Boyd, associate professor of government and field chair of political theory
Dr. Richard Boyd is an associate professor of Government and the Political Theory Field Chair. His research and teaching interests include British, French and American political thought; civil society and pluralism; political economy and the history of economic thought; and the theory and practice of immigration and citizenship policies in the United States. Dr. Boyd is the author of “Uncivil Society: The Perils of Pluralism and the Making of Modern Liberalism” (Lexington/ Rowman & Littlefield, 2004), editor of the “Cambridge Companion to Democracy in America” (Cambridge UP, 2022) and co-editor of “Tocqueville and the Frontiers of Democracy” (Cambridge UP, 2013). He has also published more than fifty journal articles and book chapters on a variety of thinkers and themes in the intellectual history of liberalism.
Open to: Print and Radio
Branding Experts
Wendy Zajack, associate professor of the practice
Dr. Wendy Zajack holds more than 20 years of experience in public relations, marketing, media relations and internal communications. Before joining Georgetown, she held positions as Senior Director of Communications and Programs for the Nokia portfolio and innovation team, Alcatel-Lucent, including leading the efforts of its LGS government arm, Lucent Technologies and Reuters America. Wendy teaches a variety of courses across the university on topics related to integrated marketing, personal branding and communications. Dr. Zajack can provide expertise on branding and marketing related to the 250th anniversary celebrations.
Open to: Print, Radio and Broadcast
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