WASHINGTON (June 29, 2026) – Communities across the country are preparing to commemorate America’s 250th anniversary, marking 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The celebration will feature national events, educational initiatives, historical exhibitions, civic engagement programs, and festivities leading up to July 4.
The anniversary is expected to spark conversations about the nation’s founding ideals, how Americans interpret the country’s history, and what the next chapter of the United States could look like. The milestone also offers an opportunity to reflect on the nation’s past while considering the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.
Faculty experts at the George Washington University are available to offer insight, analysis, and commentary on topics related to America’s 250th anniversary celebration. To schedule an interview with an expert, please contact GW Media Relations at gwmedia
gwu [dot] edu (gwmedia[at]gwu[dot]edu).
American History
Timothy Shenk is an assistant professor at the George Washington University Columbian College of Arts and Sciences. Professor Shenk is a historian of modern American politics. His latest book, Left Adrift: What Happened to Liberal Politics, explores the remaking of left-wing electoral coalitions since the 1960s and was named one of the best books of 2024 by the New Republic. His previous book, Realigners: Partisan Hacks, Political Visionaries, and the Struggle to Rule American Democracy, chronicles the rise and fall of the country’s dominant political majorities from the founding to the present. It was chosen as one of the best political books of 2022 by the Wall Street Journal.
Denver Brunsman is the department chair at the George Washington University Columbian College of Arts and Sciences. Brunsman writes on the politics and social history of the American Revolution, the early American republic, and the British Atlantic world. His courses include “George Washington and His World,” taught annually at Washington’s Mount Vernon estate. He is the author of the books George Washington and His World: Enslaver, Revolutionary, President (2026) and The Evil Necessity: British Naval Impressment in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World (2013), co-author of a leading U.S. History textbook, Liberty, Equality, Power: A History of the American People (2016; 2020), and co-editor of The American Revolution Reader (2014), among other publications.
Quito Swan is a professor at the George Washington University Columbian College of Arts and Sciences. Professor Swan is an expert in Africana Studies and History. A public-facing scholar of Black internationalism and the African Diaspora, he has single-authored three books—Pasifika Black: Oceania, Anti-Colonialism and the African World (New York University Press, 2022), Pauulu’s Diaspora: Black Internationalism and Environmental Justice (University Press of Florida, 2020), and Black Power in Bermuda: The Struggle for Decolonization (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).
Politics and Democracy
Debbie Mucarsel-Powell is a longtime public servant and higher education leader who has extensive experience tackling critical political and social issues throughout her career. She is the executive director of the GW Graduate School of Political Management.
Casey Burgat is the director of the Legislative Affairs program at the Graduate School of Political Management and host of its Mastering the Room podcast. Prior to joining GSPM, Dr. Burgat was a Senior Governance Fellow at the R Street Institute, where his research focused on issues of congressional capacity and reform. In this role, Casey wrote regularly for both scholarly and journalistic publications, including CNN, the Washington Post, and Politico, and appeared on a variety of television and radio outlets. Dr. Burgat coauthored Congress Explained: Representation and Lawmaking in the First Branch, a textbook on all things Congress, published by the Sage/CQ Press in the fall of 2022.
Peter Loge is an associate professor at the George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs. Professor Loge has over 30 years of experience in politics and communications. He currently leads the Project on Ethics in Political Communication at the School of Media and Public Affairs.
Public Policy
Steven Balla is an associate professor at the George Washington University Columbian College of Arts and Sciences. Professor Balla studies transparency, participation, and responsiveness in policymaking in Brazil, Europe, Greater China, and the United States. He has testified in front of the United States Congress. He has on two occasions served as a consultant to the Administrative Conference of the United States, as well as a Fulbright Scholar at Peking University in Beijing, Nankai University in Tianjin, and Fundação Getulio Vargas in Rio de Janeiro.
Law and the Constitution
Alan B. Morrison is a nationally recognized constitutional law scholar and veteran Supreme Court advocate who has argued 20 cases before the Court. He co-founded the Public Citizen Litigation Group with Ralph Nader and spent more than 25 years leading major law reform litigation, including landmark separation-of-powers cases such as INS v. Chadha.
Paul Schiff Berman, Walter S. Cox Professor of Law at the George Washington University Law School. Berman is one of the world’s foremost theorists on the interactions among legal systems and an expert on the constitution and administrative law.
Aram Gavoor, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Professorial Lecturer in Law and Professor (by courtesy) at the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy & Public Administration at the George Washington University Law School. Gavoor is an internationally recognized scholar in constitutional law, national security, American administrative law, artificial intelligence, and federal courts.
Arts and Culture
Laura Schiavo is the Deputy Director and Associate Professor at the George Washington University Corcoran School of the Arts and Design. Schiavo worked in museums in the DC area, including the City Museum, Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington, and the National Building Museum, where she curated Designing Tomorrow: America’s World’s Fairs of the 1930s. Her current research looks at the contemporary work of US museums in the field of civic engagement and the historic roots of that commitment, with an article forthcoming in a volume on the radical roots of public history.
Public Health
Leighton Ku, a professor of health policy and management and Director of the Center for Health Policy Research at the GW Milken Institute School of Public Health, is a health policy researcher and public policy analyst. He is an expert in national and state health reforms and how to improve access to affordable health care for vulnerable populations.
Richard Ricciardi is associate dean for Clinical Practice and Community Engagement in the GW School of Nursing and the executive director for the Center for Health Policy and Media Engagement.
Tony Yang is a professor in health policy at the George Washington University School of Nursing with a joint appointment at the Milken Institute School of Public Health in the Department of Health Policy and Management.
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