Thomas Donnelly is chief scholar at the National Constitution Center. His specialties include constitutional theory, American political development, and American constitutional history (particularly, the Reconstruction era).
Prior to joining the Center in 2016, Mr. Donnelly served as counsel at the Constitutional Accountability Center, as a Climenko Fellow and Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School, and as a law clerk for Judge Thomas Ambro on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
He is the recipient of the Judge William E. Miller Prize for best paper on the Bill of Rights. His academic writings have appeared in The Yale Law Journal, the Vanderbilt Law Review, the B.Y.U. Law Review, the Wisconsin Law Review, and Constitutional Commentary, among other law journals, and he has written popular pieces for various outlets, including The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The New Republic, Politico, Slate, Washington Monthly, Talking Points Memo, CNN.com, The Huffington Post, and The Hill.
Donnelly is a graduate of Yale Law School, where he was a projects editor for The Yale Law Journal and a Coker Fellow. Before receiving his law degree, Donnelly worked as an analyst at the Mellman Group, a polling firm. He received his master’s degree in politics from Princeton, where he received the Alpheus Thomas Mason Prize Fellowship, and his bachelor’s degree, summa cum laude, in government and philosophy from Georgetown University.
Donnelly lives in Princeton, New Jersey, with his wife, son, and daughter.
