Howell attended
Wesleyan University as an undergraduate, earning his B.A., with high honors, in 1993. Howell completed his Ph.D. in Political Science from
Stanford University in 2000. He was the recipient of
E.E. Schattschneider Award for the best dissertation in American politics (2001), by the
American Political Science Association and recipient of the best dissertation on the presidency (2001), by the Center for Presidential Studies at the George Bush School of Government and Public Service,
Texas A&M University. Howell taught in the Political Science Department at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison from 2000-2002, before moving to
Harvard University in 2002. He taught in the Government Department at Harvard until 2006 when he came to
the University of Chicago. He moved to Johns Hopkins in 2025 as the inaugural deans of the School of Government and Policy. Additionally, he has been a fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences at
Stanford University. ==Current research==