Patrick F. Fagan is a Senior Fellow at the Family Research Council -- since October 2007. Prior to that he was the William H.G. FitzGerald Senior Research Fellow in Family and Cultural Issues at The Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC where he examined the relationship between family, marriage, religion, community, and America’s social problems by utilizing social scientific research to inform public policy on issues such as crime, abuse, welfare, adoption, education, income, and general well-being.
A native of Ireland, Fagan earned his Bachelor of Social Science degree with a double major in Sociology and Social Administration, and a professional graduate degree in psychology (Dip. Psych.) from University College Dublin. He began his career in clinical psychology as a child, family, and marriage therapist in Canada, before moving to Washington, DC to pursue a doctoral degree at American University in 1976. In 1984, Fagan moved from clinical psychology into the public policy arena, again to work on family issues. In October of 2006 he defended a Ph.D dissertation in public policy (Belonging and Rejection in Family and Religion: Impacts on Society and Implications for Policy).
Patrick Fagan was executive vice president of the Free Congress Foundation in the late 1980’s, and later worked for Senator Dan Coats of Indiana before being appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary for Family and Community Policy at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services by President George H.W. Bush.
Fagan’s work has gained influence in public policy, especially in relating such public policy issues as crime, abuse, welfare, adoption, education attainment, income, and general well-being with the marriage of parents and the practice of religion. He frequently works with members of Congress, the Administration, and foreign governments to assist them in developing family policies. He has appeared on all the major TV and radio channels in the U.S. (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, CNN, CNN Worldwide, PBS and NPR) and has been quoted in all the major US newspapers. And, in addition to his ongoing list of publications, some of his work has been translated into Spanish, Italian, Polish and Japanese.
His present work focuses on Mapping America (www.mappingamericaproject.org) in an array of common goods from the perspective of marriage and religious practice combined. Other work illustrates that the social structuring of the sexual act so structures society.
He is married to Theresa Fagan and they have eight children, aged 28 to 18, four boys and four girls.
