Ronald J. Daniels is the 14th president of The Johns Hopkins University — America’s first research university. For 34 years, Hopkins has stood as the largest university recipient of federal research funds in the United States. He also is the chair of the Executive Committee of Johns
Hopkins Medicine, serving as a bridge between the university and the Johns Hopkins Health System. In 2014, Johns Hopkins Institutions had revenues of $9.6billion and employed more One of the overarching priorities for Daniels’ leadership has been increased integration of the university’s academic divisions and programs. In support of this aspiration, former New York City Mayor and Johns Hopkins alumnus Michael Bloomberg endowed 50 new chairs at the university, each of which will help fund the recruitment of distinguished faculty to two or more of the university’s schools. Mr. Bloomberg’s $250million gift adds to the nearly $3billion raised under Daniels’ leadership for the $4.5billion Rising to the Challenge Campaign. In an effort to enhance the university’s impact on, and contributions to, the city of Baltimore,
Daniels is leading Hopkins’ involvement in the East Baltimore Development Initiative – a $1.8 billion 88-acre project contiguous to the university’s health campus, and one of the country’s largest urban development projects. He is building on this work by spearheading various
initiatives – from a new K-8 charter school run by the School of Education to an innovative business accelerator – designed to foster the university’s translational research capability. Daniels has advised several Canadian governments on host of policy issues: including chairing the Ontario Panel of the Future of Government, the Market Design Committee (defining market structure of new competitive electricity markets in Ontario), the Ontario Government Task Force on Securities Regulation and the Reform of Accounting Standards. He also served on the Toronto Stock Exchange Committee on Corporate Governance in Canada. He has served as a director on the following public company boards: Brookfield Renewable
Power (2001-2005), Canwest Global (2004-2009), Moore Corporation (2002-2004) and Rockwater Capital Canada (2003-2005).
A law and economics scholar, Daniels holds an appointment as professor in the Department of Political Science at Johns Hopkins. Daniels’ research focuses on the intersections of law, economics, development, and public policy, in such areas as corporate and securities law, social and economic regulation and the role of law and legal institutions in promoting third world development. He is an author or editor of seven books, including Rule of Law Reform and Development (2008), on the role of legal institutions in the economies of third world countries, and Rethinking the Welfare State (2005), an analysis of global social welfare policies, especially the effectiveness of government vouchers (both co-authored with Michael Trebilcock). He is also the author or co-author of dozens of scholarly articles, and has become a leading voice in discussions of the tightening funding environment for early-career biomedical researchers. Previously, Daniels was provost and professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania and dean and James M. Tory Professor of Law at the University of Toronto. Daniels earned an LLM from Yale University in 1988 and a JD in 1986 from the University of Toronto, where he served as co-editor-in-chief of the law review. He received a BA from the University of Toronto in 1982, in political science and economics. He has been visiting professor and Coca-Cola World Fellow at Yale Law School and John M. Olin Visiting Fellow at Cornell Law School. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Employment Chronology
2009-present President, The Johns Hopkins University and Professor, Political Science
2005-2009 Provost, University of Pennsylvania and Professor, University of Pennsylvania Law
1995-2005 Dean, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto
2003-2004 Visiting Professor and Coca-Cola World Fellow, Yale Law School
1999-2005 James M. Tory Professor of Law, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto
Spring 1993 John M. Olin Visiting Fellow, Cornell Law School
1993-1999 Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto
1988-1993 Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto Department, The Johns Hopkins University
Return to main Steering Committee Bios page >>