Michael Lipsky

Former Distinguished Senior Fellow, Demos: A Network for Ideas and Action. Senior Program Director, Demos: A Network for Ideas and Action; Visiting Professor, Public Policy Institute, Georgetown University. Senior Program Officer, Peace and Social Justice Program, The Ford Foundation; Professor, Department of Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Wisconsin at Madison. Author of: Street Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services (Russell Sage Foundation,1980, 2010 [expanded edition]). Co-author of: Nonprofits for Hire: The Welfare State in the Age of Contracting (with S.R. Smith) (Harvard University Press,1993).

Michael Lipsky has had a profound impact on public policy and indigenous governance throughout his career. Since 1998, he has been a Founding Member and Board Director of Honoring Nations, a project focused on Indigenous Governance and Development at the Harvard Kennedy School. His commitment to public policy in Indian Country is further demonstrated by his roles as a Committee Member on the Advisory Committee on Public Policy in Indian Country at the Native American Budget and Policy Institute, University of New Mexico, and at the American Indian Governance and Policy Institute, University of Montana. From 2013 to 2018, Mr. Lipsky was a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Demos: A Network for Ideas and Action, where he previously served as the Senior Program Director from 2003 to 2013. During this time, he also shared his expertise as a Visiting Professor at the Public Policy Institute at Georgetown University from 2003 to 2018. Earlier in his career, Mr. Lipsky was a Senior Program Officer at The Ford Foundation from 1981 to 2003. His academic contributions include his tenure as a Professor in the Department of Political Science at Massachusetts. Mr. Lipsky’s extensive experience and dedication have been incredibly impactful to public policy and the empowerment of indigenous communities.