James J O'Donnell

Who is James J O'Donnell?

James Joseph O'Donnell is a classical scholar and University Professor at Georgetown University. He served as Provost of Georgetown University from 2002–2012. O'Donnell previously served as Vice Provost for Information Systems and Computing at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a former President of the American Philological Association and a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America.

O'Donnell writes and lectures on topics of the late Roman Empire, Augustine of Hippo, and also on information technology in the modern academic and cultural world. He was an early adopter of the World Wide Web for academic collaboration within the humanities. He has been involved with Bryn Mawr Classical Review since it was founded in 1990. In 1994, he offered the first Internet MOOC when five hundred students around the world participated in his University of Pennsylvania seminar on the life and work of St. Augustine through gopher and email connectivity.