Timothy Patrick McCarthy is an award-winning scholar, educator, and human rights activist who has taught at Harvard University since 1998. He is core faculty in the Equity and Opportunity Foundations Curriculum, Harvard’s Online Master’s Program in Education Leadership, and Higher Education Concentration at HGSE, and chairs The B.R.A.V.E. Institute. At the Kennedy School, where he was the first openly gay faculty member and teaches its only LGBTQ course, he is faculty chair of the Global LGBTQI+ Human Rights Program at the Carr Center and a core faculty member of Harvard’s Advanced Leadership Initiative. An historian of social movements, his courses focus on equity, leadership, and change.
McCarthy is academic director emeritus and Stanley Paterson professor of American History for the Boston Clemente Course—a free humanities college program for low-income adults—and co-recipient of the 2014 National Humanities Medal. He serves on the national Board of Directors for the Clemente Course and was recognized for outstanding service in Dorchester.
The adopted only son and grandson of teachers and factory workers, McCarthy holds degrees from Harvard College (BA) and Columbia University (MA, M.Phil., PhD). He has published five books, including Reckoning with History: Unfinished Stories of American Freedom, and is a frequent media commentator whose work has appeared in many major outlets. He has contributed to several documentary films and PBS programs, and in 2025 launched Breakdown with Tim & Anne, a weekly YouTube show and podcast.
Twice named one of Harvard Crimson's "Professors of the Year," McCarthy has received numerous teaching honors, including the Kennedy School’s Manuel C. Carballo Award and the Evelynn M. Hammonds Award for LBGTQ+ Inclusion. He has been recognized for undergraduate teaching, advising, and leadership in diversity and inclusion across Harvard.
A lifelong activist, McCarthy directed Harvard’s Alternative Spring Break Church Rebuilding Program (1997–2013), organizing students to help rebuild Black churches attacked across the U.S. A leading LGBTQ+ advocate, he was a founding member of Barack Obama’s National LGBT Leadership Council, testified during the repeal of "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell," and was honored in Massachusetts’ Portraits of Pride. He is Board Chair for Free the Slaves and an advisory board member for the American Repertory Theater.