National Endowment for the Humanities Appoints Jeff Hardwick as Director of Public Programs

WASHINGTON, D.C. —The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is pleased to announce the appointment of Jeff Hardwick as the new director of NEH’s Division of Public Programs.

“We are delighted to officially welcome Jeff Hardwick to this role at NEH,” said NEH Chair Shelly C. Lowe (Navajo). “In his career at NEH, Hardwick has distinguished himself through his skill in translating academic research into engaging public formats and his commitment to sharing untold stories of America’s diverse history and culture through innovative and accessible programs. We look forward to his continued leadership of NEH’s Division of Public Programs.”

Hardwick has worked at NEH for the last thirteen years as a Senior Program Officer, Assistant Director, Deputy Director, and Acting Director in Public Programs. His academic background is in American studies, with a doctorate from Yale University, a master’s from the Winterthur Program in Early American Culture at the University of Delaware, and an undergraduate degree from the University of California, Berkeley.

He has taught American history and literature, urban history, and public history courses at Temple University, the New School, George Mason University, and George Washington University. Hardwick is the author of Mall Maker (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003), a biography of the Viennese émigré architect Victor Gruen. Other publications include a history of African American architecture in Oklahoma, the impact of urban renewal in New Haven, the death of suburban shopping malls, and the preservation of modernist architecture. He has appeared on NPR’s “Talk of the Nation,” CBC, and several podcasts speaking about consumer culture and postwar suburbanization.

NEH’s Division of Public Programs administers grants supporting a wide range of public humanities programs that reach large and diverse audiences, in a variety of formats, including interpretation at historic sites, television, film, and radio productions, museum exhibitions, podcasts, digital games, websites, mobile apps, and other digital media.

National Endowment for the Humanities: Created in 1965 as an independent federal agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities supports research and learning in history, literature, philosophy, and other areas of the humanities by funding selected, peer-reviewed proposals from around the nation. Additional information about the National Endowment for the Humanities and its grant programs is available at neh.gov.