Chad Thevenot

Chad has served at the Institute for Humane Studies (IHS) since October 2004. He is an alumnus of IHS’s Summer Seminar program and was awarded a Humane Studies Fellowship from IHS while earning a master’s degree in communications, culture and technology from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. He also has earned a bachelor’s degree in business management from the University of Texas in Austin.
Prior to working with IHS, Chad served as the director of grants and outreach for the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) in Washington, D.C., where he directed a large grant-giving program. At MPP, Chad was also responsible for managing MPP’s celebrity outreach campaign. From June 1996 until October 2001, Chad worked at the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation (CJPF), where he served initially as operations and research manager and later as director of communications. In 2000, Chad initiated and coordinated the Coalition for Jubilee Clemency (CJC), a coalition of more than 700 religious leaders nationwide who urged President Clinton at the end of his presidency to grant clemency to nonviolent, low-level drug offenders in federal prison. In January 2001, President Clinton granted clemency to almost two dozen such offenders, including to Dorothy Gaines, who had served as the “poster person” for the CJC campaign.