Jeffrey Howard is a philosopher at University College London, where he is Professor of Political Philosophy & Public Policy and the founding Director of the Digital Speech Lab. He is Co-Editor of the journal Political Philosophy. He was recently appointed to the Online Information Advisory Committee for the UK Office of Communications (Ofcom), which advises on mis- and disinformation challenges in relation to the Online Safety Act.

He has published widely on freedom of expression, counter-extremism, AI ethics, social media, democratic citizenship, policing, criminal punishment, and many other topics. His work appears in a range of academic journals of philosophy, political science, and law, as well as The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. His first book—Setting Fire to Reason: The Ethics of Free Speech—is forthcoming with Princeton University Press. He is at work on a second book, focused on the governance of public discourse in the age of social media and generative AI. 

He is a UKRI Future Leader Fellow, BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker, British Academy Rising Star, and recipient of the Berger Memorial Prize from the American Philosophical Association. He has held visiting or affiliate positions at NYU Abu Dhabi, the University of Southern California, the Australian National University, and Oxford University, where he is a senior research associate at the Institute for Ethics in AI.

A committed teacher, Prof. Howard currently teaches ethics and political philosophy to civil servants in the UK government, engaging them on ethical dilemmas they encounter in their daily policy work. He has twice won his department’s Prize for Outstanding Faculty Teaching. In a prior role at the University of Essex, he won the award for Best Lecturer at the University, and the THINK program he founded to promote viewpoint diversity and constructive disagreement won The Guardian’s Award for Best Student Experience. 

He earned his DPhil at Oxford University and AB at Harvard University.