Jane Fountain

Jane E. Fountain is Director of the School of Public Policy and Distinguished Professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is an Adjunct Distinguished Professor by appointment in the College of Information and Computer Sciences. Her current research is focused on artificial intelligence, digitalization, governance and institutional change and on cross-boundary management and governance. Fountain is coeditor of Artificial Intelligence and Power in Government. Palgrave McMillan, in press (with Sorin Dan and Niina Mäntylä); and the author of “The Algorithmic State? Challenges to Democracy in an Era of Digitalization,” (Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, 2023);  “The Moon, the Ghetto and Artificial Intelligence,” (Government Information Quarterly, 2022; best paper selection, Digital Government Society annual conference, 2020); and “The Human and the Digital: Building Cross-Boundary Capacity to Solve Wicked Problems,” (Korea Public Finance Information Service, 2021). 

Fountain was the co-founder and director of the National Center for Digital Government, from 2002 to 2022, launched with support from the National Science Foundation. An elected Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, she was secretary of the board of directors from 2020 to 2022 and served on the board (elected) from 2017 to 2023. She was named to the list of the 100 Most Influential People in Digital Government in 2018 and 2019 by apolitical. She was chair, vice chair and a member of the global agenda council of the World Economic Forum from 2010 to 2014. Fountain was named a Federal 100 awardee and was awarded the University of Massachusetts Amherst Chancellor’s Medal, the highest honor bestowed to faculty on the campus, in 2013. In 2010, she received the Chancellor’s Award for Outstanding Accomplishments in Research and Creative Activity. Among other leadership roles, Fountain was a member of American Bar Association blue ribbon commission on the Future of e-Rulemaking; and served as an appointed member of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Governor’s Council on Innovation.

Fountain’s publications have appeared in journals including Public Administration Review, Behavioral Science & Policy, Governance, Communications of the ACM, Science & Public Policy, and Technology in Society. Among her publications, she is the author of Building the Virtual State: Information Technology and Institutional Change (Brookings Institution Press, 2001), which was awarded an Outstanding Academic Title by Choice and has been translated into Chinese, Portuguese, Japanese, and Spanish; Building an Enterprise Government: Creating an ecosystem for cross-agency collaboration (Partnership for Public Service and IBM Center for Business of Government, 2016); Cross-agency Collaboration: A Guide for Managers (IBM Center for Business and Government, 2013); and The Future of Government (World Economic Forum, 2011, coauthored). 

Fountain has delivered keynote addresses and invited lectures in more than 20 countries. Before joining the faculty at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, she served for sixteen years on the faculty of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. She has held fellowships from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Yale University, and the Mellon Foundation. Fountain holds master’s degrees from Harvard and Yale Universities and a PhD from Yale University.