Ami Fields-Meyer is a New York Times bestselling author, political strategist, and former White House senior policy advisor.

His first book, On Courage, co-authored Julia Angwin, debuted on the New York Times bestseller list in July 2026. Hailed by Rachel Maddow as “a classic of our time,” On Courage is deeply reported manual about how anyone can defy an authoritarian – based on original interviews with more than 100 dissidents, activists, and theorists across the world.

Fields-Meyer has served as Senior Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation. From 2021 to 2024, he served in the White House, including as Senior Policy Advisor to Vice President Kamala Harris and as a member of the President’s science and technology policy team. He is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Fields-Meyer has been an advisor to political candidates, leaders of top civil rights groups and major philanthropic foundations, and high-profile public officials, from the mayor of Los Angeles and cabinet members to the vice president of the United States.

He has written about defying authoritarianism for The New Yorker and New York Times, police brutality against disabled Americans for The Atlantic, AI’s march toward illiberalism for Foreign Policy, what America can learn from South Africa’s race reckoning for Talking Points Memo, how technology is used to punish the poor for The American Prospect, the politics of the American Jewish community for Haaretz, and more.

A trusted voice on issues of democracy, authoritarianism, civil and human rights, and political power, Fields-Meyer is a frequent commentator on these issues in the media, and has been quoted in The New York Times, TIME, NPR, Axios, WIRED, The Boston Globe, Politico, and various international media outlets. +