Hahrie Han, a political scientist at Johns Hopkins University and inaugural director of its SNF Agora Institute, is one of 22 individuals chosen from around the world as a 2025 MacArthur Fellow. She will receive a no-strings-attached monetary award of $800,000, sometimes referred to as a “genius grant,” over five years.
Han, 50, is the only Marylander on the list released this week by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, which is known for selecting “extraordinarily talented and creative individuals” to receive cash awards “as an investment in their potential.”
Another honoree with a Hopkins connection is Jason McLellan, a professor of molecular biosciences at the University of Texas at Austin. He is a structural biologist who earned a PhD from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 2009.
Other 2025 MacArthur Fellows include an archeologist, a neurobiologist, an astrophysicist, an epidemiologist and several artists, including a composer, a photographer and a filmmaker. They are nominated by anonymous experts in various fields. In addition to the United States, this year’s honorees come from London, Amsterdam and Ho Chi Minh City.
‘Completely floored’
According to The Hub, Hopkins’ news source, Han is the first political scientist chosen for the award since 2001 and the first Hopkins faculty member to be selected since 2008, when two Hopkins faculty members, Adam Reiss and Peter Pronovost, were recognized.
“I was completed floored – I had no idea,” the Hub quoted her as saying. “Obviously it’s the kind of thing that no one ever expects. The entire process is shrouded in so much secrecy. It’s such an enormous honor and privilege to be a part of the cohort.”
“We are thrilled that the MacArthur Foundation has chosen to recognize Hahrie Han as worthy of their ‘genius’ grant,” JHU President Ron Daniels said, according to the Hub. “She is, of course, the visionary inaugural director who brought our SNF Agora Institute to life.
“But this honor celebrates Hahrie Han, the researcher whose scholarship is transforming her field and deepening our understanding of how to build stronger democracies at this historic moment,” Daniels continued. “We are so proud to call Hahrie one of our own at Hopkins, and even more so to know she will extend the reach of her insights in the years ahead thanks to the support of the MacArthur Fellowship. Congratulations to Hahrie and to the entire extraordinary class of 2025 MacArthur Fellows.”
Han received a BA degree in 1997 from Harvard University and a PhD in 2005 from Stanford University. Besides her role as director of the Agora Institute, she is the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Professor in Hopkins’ Department of Political Science and faculty director of the P3 Lab. Her areas of focus are political science, civil society and community organizing.
Before joining Hopkins in 2019, Han was the Anton Vonk Professor of Political Science and Environmental Politics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, from 2015 to 2019, and a member of the political science faculty of Wellesley College from 2005 to 2015.
“Analytical rigor’
Han’s five books include: Moved to Action: Motivation, Participation, and Inequality in American Politics (2009); How Organizations Develop Activists: Civic Association and Leadership in the 21st Century (2014); Groundbreakers: How Obama’s 2.2 Million Volunteers Transformed Campaigning in America (2014); and Prisms of the People: Power and Organizing in Twenty-First-Century America (2021).
For her most recent book, Undivided: The Quest for Racial Solidarity in an American Church (2024), Han spent years researching an evangelical megachurch in Cincinnati, Ohio, that embarked on a faith-based, racial justice program. Her book follows four participants in the program to understand how they were moved to bridge their differences and work together toward social transformation.
In this case, members of the congregation were part of a citywide effort to support a ballot initiative that would raise their taxes to fund a universal preschool program at a time of deep polarization and division. By identifying models for strengthening civic engagement and community connections, she points the way toward a multiracial democracy that is more responsive to its citizens’ concerns and aspirations.
“Hahrie Han is a political scientist addressing critical questions about how and why people participate in civic and political life,” the MacArthur Foundation states in a biography of Han posted on its website. “Employing a range of ethnographic, sociological, experimental, and quantitative methods, she examines organizational structures and tactics that encourage individuals to interact across lines of difference and work together for change in the public sphere.”
Han “combines the analytical rigor of political science with careful attention to the lived experiences of her subjects,” the foundation’s biography continues. “She advances scholars’ understanding of what makes certain forms of civic participation more durable and impactful than others. At the same time, she provides policymakers, organizers, and civic leaders with actionable recommendations for how to offer more meaningful opportunities for people to make a difference and take part in collective problem-solving.”
‘New opportunities’
According to the Hub article by Dave Alexander, Han is still formulating plans for how she will use the award. He quoted her as saying the grant “creates new opportunities and greater freedom to pursue my work.”
Alexander noted in his article that Han had already planned to move on from her role as director of the SNF Agora Institute at the end of the 2025-26 academic year to focus more fully on her scholarship as a political scientist and that she will remain on the faculty at Hopkins after her term as SNF Agora’s director ends.
“If democracy is about how we forge a common life together, then my work focuses on how we equip people with the skills and motivations they need to work with others from all different backgrounds to do the hard work of democracy,” he quoted Han as saying.
“I like to find unexpected places where collective life is strong and democracy is working to see what lessons we can learn,” Han added. “In this moment of political turbulence, it is especially meaningful to receive an award like this, to shine a light on the importance of understanding these questions.”
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