Phineas Baxandall

Activist, former academic, and Center for Artistic Activism Alumnus

Phineas Baxandall is an activist and former academic who has spent years thinking about how to explain dense economic and policy issues in accessible ways. He spent eight years as a teaching fellow in political economy and political philosophy at Harvard’s undergraduate honors program in Social Studies, and three years working at Harvard’s Kennedy School for the Taubman Center for State and Local Government, where he conducted research, translated others’ arcane academic studies into accessible research briefs, served on a government study of local aid, and worked with mayors to improve services for their constituents. Since 2006, Baxandall has directed advocacy programs on tax and budget issues and transportation for the national network of Public Interest Research Groups. His recent campaigns include: preventing companies that commit misdeeds from using their out-of-court settlements as a tax deduction, increasing transparency of public subsidies to corporations, closing loopholes that allow offshore tax dodges, and promoting investment in public transportation. Baxandall received his doctorate in Political Science from MIT.