John Aubrey Douglass is Senior Research Fellow - Public Policy and Higher Education at the Center for Studies in Higher Education (CSHE), and is a faculty member in the Goldman School of Public Policy, at the University of California - Berkeley. His research focuses on the forces and politics of globalization, the future of Democracy, the role of universities in economic development and socioeconomic mobility, the student experience and institutional self-improvement, and the history of higher education. He has written extensively on the rise of neo-nationalism and the impact on universities.
His books include Neo-Nationalism and Universities: Populists, Autocrats, and the Future of Higher Education (Johns Hopkins University Press and available a free Open Access eBook via Project Muse). Other books include The New Flagship University: Changing the Paradigm from Global Ranking to National Relevancy (Palgrave Macmillan 2016), The Conditions for Admissions (Stanford Press 2007), The California Idea and American Higher Education (Stanford University Press, 2000). He is now working on the book From the Rise of the Publics to Trump’s America: Historical and Contemporary Turning Points in Higher Education (de Gruyter/Brill).
He is the Founding Principal Investigator (PI) of the Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) Consortium – a group of major research universities in the US and internationally that conduct survey research on undergraduates and graduate students, share data, and seek innovation and institutional self-improvement. A recent SERU report The Multi-Engagement Model: Understanding Diverse Pathways to Student Success at Research Universities utilizes 11 years of survey research and data collection.
He has been a Visiting Fellow or Professor at The New Institute (Hamburg), the University of Bergamo (Italy), Amsterdam University College, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB), the Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Brazil), Sciences Po (Paris) and New College, University of Oxford.
Updated 11.6.2025
