Institute at Brown for Environment and Society

Jean E. Howard (’70 LHD ’16 hon.) is the George Delacorte Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, where she teaches early modern literature, Shakespeare, feminist studies, and theater history. Dr. Howard has also served in several administrative roles at Columbia, including as Columbia’s first Vice Provost for Diversity Initiatives. She has also been chair of the Department of English and Comparative Literature, Director of the Institute for Research on Women and Gender, and on the Executive Board of the Center for the Study of Social Difference. She began her career teaching at Syracuse University and is the author of six books.

Dr. Howard earned an AB in literatures from Brown, an M.Phil. from the University of London, and a PhD from Yale. She served for many years as a Senator for the National Phi Beta Kappa organization and as chair of its Visiting Scholar Committee. She is a past president of the Shakespeare Association of America and was a 1999 Fellow of the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Dr. Howard is a trustee emerita, and, in addition to her service on the IBES Advisory Council, serves as a lifetime emerita member of the Pembroke Center Advisory Council and as a member of the Diversity Advisory Council.