Shawn Healy, PhD, leads iCivics’ state and federal policy and advocacy work through the CivXNow Coalition and oversees civic education campaigns in several key states. Since Healy joined iCivics in 2021, 24 states strengthened civic education policies, Congress quadrupled funding for K-12 civics, and the CivXNow Coalition grew to 340+ viewpoint and geographically diverse organizational members.
Healy chaired the Illinois Task Force on Civic Education in 2014 and later led separate, successful legislative campaigns for a required civics course in Illinois in middle and high school. He also chaired the Illinois Social Science Standards Task Force. The State Board of Education adopted its recommendations in 2015.
Healy speaks regularly at conferences across the country, contributes to local and national media, and produces original scholarship on political participation and civic education. He also serves as an adjunct professor in Public Policy at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and on the Board of Directors of the Legislative Semester, Inc. and the Student Press Law Center.
Previously the Democracy Program Director at the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, Healy began his career as a high school social studies teacher in Wisconsin and Illinois. A 2001 James Madison Fellow, he holds a MA and PhD from UIC in Political Science and earned a bachelor’s degree with distinction in Political Science, History and Secondary Education from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
