Professor Malcolm K. Sparrow

Professor of the Practice of Public Management, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

Malcolm K. Sparrow is Professor of the Practice of Public Management at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is Faculty Chair of the school’s executive program “Strategic Management of Regulatory and Enforcement Agencies.” Professor Sparrow has authored nine books. Recent publications include the following:

• Fundamentals of Regulatory Design (Kindle Direct Publishing, 2020)
• Handcuffed: What Holds Policing Back, and the Keys to Reform (Brookings Institution Press, 2016)
• The Character of Harms: Operational Challenges in Control (Cambridge University Press, 2008)
• The Regulatory Craft: Controlling Risks, Solving Problems, and Managing Compliance (Brookings Institution Press, 2000)
• License to Steal: How Fraud Bleeds America's Health Care System (Westview Press, 2000)

He served 10 years with the British Police Service, rising to the rank of Detective Chief Inspector. He has conducted internal affairs investigations, commanded a tactical firearms unit, and has extensive experience with criminal investigation. His research interests include regulatory and enforcement strategy, fraud control, corruption control, and operational risk management. He is also a patent-holding inventor in the area of computerized fingerprint analysis and is dead serious at tennis. He holds an MA in mathematics from Cambridge University, an MPA from the Kennedy School, and a PhD in Applied Mathematics from Kent University at Canterbury.