William Galston

Who is William Galston?

William Galston holds the Ezra K. Zilkha Chair in Governance Studies and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He joined the Brookings Institution on January 1, 2006. Formerly the Saul Stern Professor and Dean at the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, Dr. Galston specializes in issues of American public philosophy and political institutions.

He was deputy assistant for domestic policy to U.S. President Bill Clinton. He has also been employed by the presidential campaigns of Al Gore and Walter Mondale. Since 1995, Galston has served as a founding member of the Board of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy and as chair of the Campaign's Task Force on Religion and Public Values.

Galston was in the United States Marine Corps, serving as a sergeant. He was educated at Cornell and the University of Chicago, where he got his Ph.D. He then taught for nearly a decade in the Department of Government at the University of Texas. From 1998 until 2005 he was professor of public policy at the University of Maryland. Later he was executive director for the National Commission on Civic Renewal.