Faculty/Staff

JOHN WEINGART
Associate Director, Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University

John Weingart is the associate director of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University. Before coming to Eagleton in 2000, he worked in New Jersey state government focusing on environmental and land use issues during the administrations of two Democratic and two Republican governors. He served as Director of the Division of Coastal Resources, Director of the Hudson River Waterfront Study Commission, Assistant Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection, and Executive Director of the state's Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Facility Siting Board. Since coming to Eagleton, he has was the gubernatorally-appointed chair of  the Delaware and Raritan Canal Commission from 2002-2004 and the New Jersey Highlands Water Protection and Planning Council from its first meeting in 2004 through its 90th in December 2009.

His publications include the Eagleton Institute study, "Another Government Success Story: Citizen Volunteers on New Jersey State Boards and Commissions;" and the books, Waste Is A Terrible Thing To Mind: Risk, Radiation, and Distrust of Government (www.WasteIsATerribleThingToMind.com, and Reform of Undergraduate Education (written with Arthur E. Levine) which was named "Book of the Year" by the American Council on Education.

On Sunday nights, John hosts Music You Can't Hear On The Radio, New Jersey's longest-running radio show of folk music, bluegrass and other American roots music, on WPRB-FM and WPRB.com (www.veryseldom.com).

He holds a B.A. in Sociology from Brandeis University and a Master's in Public Affairs from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School, and was also in the Leadership New Jersey class of 1989. John and his wife, Deborah Spitalnik, live in Hunterdon County.