Arnold M. Howitt


Arnold M. Howitt
Executive Director
Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation
Adjunct Lecturer
John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
Ph.D., Harvard University, 1976

Areas of Specialization:
Public Management and Intergovernmental Relations

Arnold M. Howitt is the executive director of the Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation and adjunct lecturer in public policy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. He teaches courses through the Evans School Cascade Executive Programs on the policy and politics of budgeting, managing organizational change, crisis management, and emergency preparedness.

In addition to his work at the Ash Institute, Howitt also co-directs the Program on Emergency Preparedness, Crisis Management, and Disaster Recovery for the Taubman Center for State and Local Government at the Harvard Kennedy School, serves as the co-chair of the Beijing Executive Public Management Training Program, participates in several training programs through a partnership with the School of Public Policy and Management at Tsinghua University, and teaches in the China’s Leaders in Development Program and the China and Vietnam HIV/AIDS Public Policy Training Programs. He is also developing a new crisis management research and executive education program for senior Chinese officials from national, provincial, and city governments. Howitt has also taught training sessions in emergency preparedness with the National Conference of State Legislatures, National League of Cities, and National Governors Association Policy Academy on Homeland Security and Bioterrorism.

Howitt has written a number of articles on emergency preparedness and is co-author and co-editor of Managing Crises: Responses to Large-Scale Emergencies (CQ Press, forthcoming 2008) and Countering Terrorism: Dimensions of Preparedness (MIT Press, 2003), and contributor to Preparing for Terrorism: Tools for Evaluating the Metropolitan Medical Response System Program (National Academies Press, 2002). In his current research, Howitt is studying regulatory policy on automobile-related air pollution in China, a subject he has worked on extensively in the United States.

Howitt has served as a member of review panels for the Institute of Medicine/National Academies from 2000-02, and the U.S. National Research Council/National Academies from 2001-03 that studied the effectiveness of the Clean Air Act and made recommendations for change in Air Quality Management in the United States (National Academies Press, 2004). He also served on the Massachusetts Governor’s Bioterrorism Coordinating Council in 2002, directed a series of studies of transportation and air quality policy making in the U.S. federal government and in 15 states for the U.S. Department of Transportation and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from 1993-2003, and served part-time at MIT as executive director of the Cooperative Mobility Program.

Howitt holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University and a Master of Arts and BA from Columbia University.

Publications and Links