James Diddams
Fall 2020 John Jay Fellow
Hometown: Seattle, Washington
College: Wheaton College
Degree: B.A. Philosophy, Economics and Art History
James Diddams graduated cum laude from Wheaton College with a triple major in Philosophy, Economics, and Art History and minors in Mathematics and Political Science. As an undergraduate, he was an active member of Wheaton’s British Parliamentary debate team. During his final year on the team, he was a team co-captain and won first place at Loyola University’s Fall 2018 Rambler Tournament. He was also a member of Wheaton’s Student Managed Investment Fund and served as the business manager of Wheaton’s undergraduate academic journal, The Pub.
In the summer of 2018, James campaigned with the Congressional Leadership Fund for Peter Roskam in Illinois’ 6th Congressional District. He also attended the Business Bridge program at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, a program designed for liberal arts majors interested in the business world. Additionally, James served as an assistant to David Iglesias, the Director of the Wheaton’s center for Faith, Politics and Economics. James was recently a co-author of a policy brief entitled “Emergency Executive Powers: Not Needed Indefinitely” where he discussed the dangers of persisting executive powers post-pandemic. In April 2020, his work was published in the Mercatus Center’s series on COVID-19.
After completing the John Jay Fellows Program, James hopes to pursue a career in think tanks because of their combination of academic research and real-world applications. Normative questions about the relationship between households, markets, and states were his greatest interest as an undergraduate, leading him to study such a broad set of topics. By combining rigorous social science with philosophy, he aspires to one day be a thought leader on some of the most pressing issues of our time. His lifetime goal is to obtain graduate degree in Economics and a PhD in Philosophy. Outside of school, his hobbies include attending art galleries, lifting weights, and making digital collages of his favorite artwork.