John Howe is a Professor in the Melbourne Law School and is a member of the Centre for Employment and Labour Relations Law. John's research interests include labour market regulation and policy, regulatory design, and social procurement.

He has written extensively on the role of the state in regulating employment and labour markets, and on the intersection between state-based regulation and corporate governance. John is presently engaged in research concerning regulatory enforcement of minimum employment standards and labour dispute resolution in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region. This includes a project funded by the Paul Ramsay Foundation investigating the use of data science to prevent wage underpayment. John is also a CI on an ARC Discovery project investigating the formal and informal regulation of labour disputes in Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam. He also leads the Program on Regulation and Design, as well as research on the evaluation of government social procurement initiatives.

John is a member of the Australian Labour Law Association and the Association of Industrial Relations Academics of Australia and New Zealand (AIRAANZ). He is also a member of the Editorial Committee of the Australian Journal of Labour Law, and was an Editor of the AJLL from 2015-2023.

Prior to commencing an academic career, John worked in private legal practice, and also as a researcher for public policy and advocacy organisations in Washington DC. John was Secretary of the Australian Labour Law Association between 2005 and 2009, and Chair of the international Labour Law Research Network from 2015-2019. He was Deputy Dean of the Melbourne Law School from 2013-2016, and Director of the Melbourne School of Government from 2017-2023.