Researching John Porter

He was founder and Co-Chairman of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, a voluntary association of more than 250 Members of Congress working to identify, monitor, and end human rights violations worldwide. He co-authored legislation creating Radio Free Asia and served as Chair of the Global Legislators Organized for a Balanced Environment (GLOBE USA).

He was a partner and now serves as Senior Advisor to the international lawfirm Hogan Lovells. He served as Research!America Chair Emeritus and was Vice-Chair of the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health. He is member of the National Academy of Medicine and for 32 years, was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Porter is also a member of the Inter-American Dialogue. He was Chairman of PBS, a trustee of the Brookings Institution and served on the boards of the RAND Corporation, the American Heart Association, the PBS Foundation, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Among over 275 awards for his service in Congress is the Mary Wood Lasker Award for Public Service. In 2014, he was awarded the Public Welfare Medal from the National Academy of Sciences.

Before his election to Congress, Porter served in the Illinois House of Representatives and prior to that as an Honor Law Graduate Attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice in the Kennedy Administration. He attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is a graduate of Northwestern University and, with distinction of the University of Michigan Law School. Porter has ten honorary degrees.

The 845,00 square foot John Edward Porter Neuroscience Research Center on the campus of the National Institutes of Health is named in his honor. It was dedicated on March 31, 2014. Porter is the 2014 recipient of the National Academy of Sciences Public Welfare Medal, the Academy’s highest honor.

Porter was born in Vancouver and completed his education at the London School of Economics in the United Kingdom. There, he became interested in studies of social class. On returning to Canada he joined the faculty of Carleton University. He remained at Carleton as a professor, and later, as department chairman, dean and academic vice-president. He was also visiting professor at Harvard and the University of Toronto.

In 1658, Porter joined several others in purchasing a large tract of land on the west side of Narragansett Bay, called the Pettaquamscutt Purchase, which became South Kingstown, Rhode Island. He eventually moved to his new land, leaving his aging wife behind. She sued for support, and the sympathetic court impounded Porter's estate until he made restitution, which he did within a few months. Porter later had a relationship with Herodias Gardiner, the former common-law wife of George Gardiner; he was charged with cohabiting with her but was acquitted. He might not have married her, but she did cosign several deeds with him in 1671.

Porter had only one known child, Hannah, who married a son of Portsmouth Compact signer Samuel Wilbore. His step-daughter Sarah Odding married compact signer Philip Sherman.