Danielle Allen is an expert on the intersection of ethics and democracy.
Why you should listen
Danielle Allen studies classics, democratic theory, political sociology and the history of political thought. A professor at Harvard, she directs the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics. She has published widely on justice, government and citizenship, both in ancient Athens and modern America. She is the lead investigator for Harvard's Democratic Knowledge Project, a research and action lab that strives to strengthen democracies.
Allen graduated from Princeton University with a classics degree in 1993 and earned a PhD in classics from King's College at Cambridge University in 1996. She received a second PhD in government from Harvard in 2001. She is a former chair of the Mellon Foundation Board and the Pulitzer Prize Board and a current member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.
Danielle Allen’s TED Talk
Danielle Allen, Chris Anderson, Corey Hajim
An ethical plan for ending the pandemic and restarting the economy
49 minutes 57 secondsAs COVID-19 continues to spread, the world is facing two existential threats at once: a public health emergency and an economic crisis. Political theorist Danielle Allen describes how we can ethically and democratically address both problems by scaling up "smart testing," which would track positive cases with peer-to-peer software on people's cell phones -- so we can end the pandemic and get back to work. (This virtual conversation is part of the TED Connects series, hosted by head of TED Chris Anderson and business curator Corey Hajim. Recorded April 6, 2020)Posted Apr 2020
