CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – Miles Rapoport, a former Connecticut Secretary of State and state legislator representing West Hartford, has been appointed Senior Practice Fellow of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation.

Prior to his appointment, Rapoport was president of the independent grassroots organization Common Cause. For 13 years, he headed the public policy center Demos. He has written, spoken, and organized widely on issues of American democracy.

A 1971 graduate of Harvard, Rapoport is the first fellow appointed as part of the Ash Center’s new Senior Practice Fellowship in American Democracy, which seeks to deepen the Center’s engagement on fundamental issues of democratic practice. The new fellowship is also intended to expand the connections between scholarship and the field of practice of people and organizations working to defend and improve public institutions.

“The Kennedy School is at its best when practitioners and scholars collaborate to solve urgent public problems,” said Professor Archon Fung, academic dean of the Kennedy School and Ford Foundation Professor of Democracy and Citizenship. “Miles is uniquely qualified to connect the intellectual resources of the Kennedy School and Harvard with the on-the-ground practitioners in the field. We are delighted to appoint him to this important position.”