Kara Swisher is joining the University of Michigan as a visiting professor, adding her expertise as a top journalist and podcaster covering the tech industry—something she has been doing for most of her career.

Swisher will join the Ford School of Public Policy faculty in fall 2025 as a Harry A. and Margaret D. Towsley Foundation Policymaker in Residence.

Swisher’s career began in the 1990s at the San Francisco bureau of The Wall Street Journal. She is the host of On with Kara Swisher and co-host of the Pivot podcast, as well as the editor-at-large at New York Magazine and a CNN contributor.

She is the co-founder of the technology website Recode and tech conference Code, which is considered the country’s premier conference on tech and media. Once called “Silicon Valley’s most feared but revered journalist,” she is the author of The New York Times bestselling memoir, “Burn Book: A Tech Love Story.”

Swisher, an observer of emerging technologies and their adaptation, will teach a seminar for undergraduate and graduate policy students called The Information Environment & the Wired World: Media, Technology, and Public Policy at the Ford School.

On April 2 at Weill Hall, Swisher will record her “On with Kara Swisher” podcast live in conversation with Jeff Lawson, owner of The Onion and ex-CEO and cofounder of Twilio.

Former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot will return in fall 2025 for her second visit as a Towsley Policymaker in Residence. Lightfoot, a 1984 U-M graduate, will co-teach with associate dean Jeff Morenoff a graduate course called Strategic Public Policy Consulting.

Lightfoot has long been involved in civic service in Chicago, including serving as Chicago’s mayor from 2019 to 2023. She is the second woman, first Black female and first openly gay person in that role. Previously she has been an assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, and president of the Chicago Police Board, among many other positions.

“Policymakers in residence enrich the Ford School community, giving students the opportunity to learn from practitioners in an academic setting, offering mentoring and participating in public events that reach beyond Weill Hall,” said Ford School Dean Celeste Watkins-Hayes. “We are thrilled that Kara Swisher will be giving her unique take on technology and public policy at this important time of rapid change. And we are happy to welcome Lori Lightfoot back to her alma mater, once again providing practical insight into what makes local government work.”

The Towsley Foundation Policymaker in Residence Program was established at the Ford School in 2002 to bring individuals with significant national and international policymaking experience to campus to interact with students and faculty.

The program enhances the curriculum and strengthens ties to the policy community. Past Towsley visitors include Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, Ohio Court of Appeals Judge Laurel Beatty Blunt and former U.S. Rep. Sandy Levin.