John C. Pinheiro, Ph.D., is Director of Research at the Acton Institute, where he leads the research department of fellows and affiliate scholars, oversees the Journal of Markets and Morality and advises its executive editor, manages book publications, oversees academic grants and awards, and lectures nationally and internationally for Acton on topics such as the American founding.
Prior to joining Acton, he was professor of history at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, from 2004-2022. At Aquinas Dr. Pinheiro founded the college's popular Semester-in-Rome and Catholic Studies programs, chaired the history and philosophy departments, served on the college’s strategic leadership team, and directed general education. Previous to Aquinas, Dr. Pinheiro was assistant editor of the Papers of George Washington at the University of Virginia, where he co-edited Volume 12 of the Presidential Series of the Papers of George Washington (Virginia, 2005). In 2005 he and his fellow editors presented Volume 12 to President George W. Bush in the Oval Office and was a group recipient of the National Humanities Medal with the Papers of George Washington project.
Dr. Pinheiro holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Tennessee, degrees in history and religious studies from California State University, and he studied Italian at Universitá per Stranieri di Perugia. He was an elected member of the Lilly Fellows Program National Network Board from 2014-2018 and currently serves on the Advisory Board for the Ferris State University Economics Program, the editorial board of the Journal of Markets and Morality, and as consulting editor on James K. Polk for the American President resource at the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs.
His publications include academic and popular articles on the early American republic, American religious history, and the Catholic Church in outlets such as the Journal of the Early Republic, Fides et Historia, Law & Liberty, Public Discourse, Imaginative Conservative, and University Bookman. He lectures widely and has appeared on National Public Radio, Mars Hill Audio, "Talking History" on Newstalk-Dublin, Radio Free Korea, and CSPAN. Dr. Pinheiro's books include the award-winning Missionaries of Republicanism: A Religious History of the Mexican-American War (Oxford, 2014) and Manifest Ambition: James K. Polk and Civil-Military Relations during the Mexican War (Praeger, 2007). In 2019 he published The American Experiment in Ordered Liberty for the Acton Institute. His current book project is, Beyond Burke: George Washington and the Origins of American Conservatism.
