John Forren

John Forren is Executive Director of the Menard Family Center for Democracy at Miami University of Ohio.

A native of Pataskala, Ohio, Dr. Forren holds a bachelor's degree with College Honors from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in political science from Johns Hopkins University. Before coming to Miami in 1997, he taught at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, East Carolina University and the College of William and Mary. He currently serves as an associate professor in Miami's Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences and is a faculty affiliate of the Department of Political Science and the Department of Justice & Community Studies. He has served as the executive director of the University’s Menard Family Center for Democracy since its inception in 2019.

Dr. Forren's research and teaching interests lie in the fields of American government and politics, constitutional law and history, public policy-making and civic engagement. In that vein, he has published on a range of issues including the development of federal and state statutory protections for civil liberties, the use of media in political campaigns, state-level trends in civic participation, the impact of college-based civic engagement programs, the evolution of legal policy in the lower courts and the federal government’s role in protecting Native American religious liberties. He has also co-authored two of the National Conference on Citizenship's Ohio Civic Health Index Reports and served from 2013-15 as the Academic Director of the U.S. State Department’s Study of the U.S. Institutes on Civic Engagement at Miami University.