Advisory Council and Board

Ellen Adler joined the New Press in 2003 and has been its publisher since 2006. In addition to her role as publisher, Adler acquires and edits works of narrative nonfiction and memoir as well as books about inequality and social policy. Recent authors she has acquired and edited include National Book Award finalist Arlie Russell Hochschild (Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right), NAACP Image Award winner Susan Burton (Becoming Ms. Burton: From Prison to Recovery to Leading the Fight for Incarcerated Women), and Sohaila Abdulali (What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape). Adler has recently been spearheading a program to create young adult editions based on classic New Press titles, including Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen and Paul Robeson: No One Can Silence Me by Martin Duberman.

Prior to joining the New Press, Adler held a range of editorial, marketing, and executive positions at Berlitz, Doubleday, the Dial Press, and Knopf. She is a past trustee of Columbia University Press and now serves on its advisory board. Adler has served on the Association of American Publishers’ Freedom to Read Committee and is currently a member of the steering committee of the Independent Publishers Caucus.

Max Anderson has devoted his career to advancing the mission of nonprofit cultural institutions while creating best practices to ensure their development and sustainability. He has long sought to address challenges facing the cultural sector, from community engagement to programmatic relevance, transparent business practices, cultural property ownership disputes, operational efficiency, and the impact of digital platforms on communications. Since 2016 he has served as president of Souls Grown Deep Foundation and Community Partnership, dedicated to promoting the work of Black artists from the South and supporting their communities by fostering economic empowerment, racial and social justice, and educational advancement. Prior to his current role, he was a museum director for almost thirty years in Atlanta, Toronto, New York City, Indianapolis, and Dallas.

Recently retired, Stephen Case was, for twenty-eight years, a partner in the law firm of Davis Polk & Wardwell, after which he was for several years managing director and general counsel at Emerald Development Managers LP. Case also served for two years as nonexecutive chairman of the board of Motors Liquidation Company (formerly General Motors Corporation) and was for fourteen years a trustee of Columbia University and for ten years a board member of New York Presbyterian Hospital. He is a graduate of both Columbia College and Columbia Law School.

Dr. Vishakha N. Desai is Senior Advisor for Global Affairs to the President of Columbia University, Senior Research Scholar in Global Studies at its School of International and Public Affairs, and Chair of Columbia’s Committee on Global Thought.  From 1990 to 2012 Dr. Desai held a variety of positions at the Asia Society, initially as the Director of the Asia Society Museum and for the last eight years as President and CEO.

In addition to several publications, Dr. Desai is also a frequent contributor to newspapers and magazines in both the US and Asia, and her forthcoming memoir, World as Family: A Journey of Multi-Rooted Belongings, was published by Columbia University press in May of 2021.

Dr. Desai is the recipient of five honorary degrees and holds a B.A. in Political Science from Bombay University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Asian Art History from the University of Michigan. 

Dr. Wayne A. I. Frederick was the 17th president of Howard University and is currently the President Emeritus of Howard University and the distinguished Charles R. Drew Professor of Surgery at the Howard University College of Medicine. He is also a practicing cancer surgeon at Howard University Hospital, where he continues to consult patients and perform surgeries. 

Bruce Greenwald is the Robert Heilbrunn Professor of Finance and Asset Management at Columbia Business School and academic director of the Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing. He received an MS and MPA from Princeton University in 1969 and his PhD from MIT in 1978. Greenwald is the recipient of a Columbia University Press Distinguished Book Awards for Creating a Learning Society: A New Approach to Growth, Development, and Social Progress.

Zachary Karabell is the founder of the Progress Network at New America, president of River Twice Capital, and an author and columnist. Previously, he was head of global strategies at Envestnet, a publicly traded financial services firm. Prior to that, he was president of Fred Alger & Company. In addition, from 2011–2013, he ran the River Twice Fund, an alternative fund that focused on sustainability. Educated at Columbia, Oxford, and Harvard, where he received his PhD, Karabell has written widely on history, economics, and international relations. His most recent book, Inside Money: Brown Brothers Harriman and the American Way of Power was published by Penguin in May of 2021. He is the author of twelve previous books and he sits on the board of New America and PEN America. In 2003, the World Economic Forum designated him a Global Leader for Tomorrow.

Charles Knapp is a native New Yorker and graduate of Columbia College (1977) and Columbia Law School (1980). Before entering private practice, he served as an assistant district attorney in Robert Morgenthau’s New York County District Attorney’s Office and as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of New York. He has also served as general counsel to a structured finance company. He also served as inspector general for the City of Mount Vernon. He currently maintains his litigation practice and is president of the Knapp Family Foundation, a charity founded by his parents Russell and Bettina Knapp, and president of the Salo W. and Jeannette M. Baron Foundation.

Susan Moldow was president of the Scribner Publishing Group and publisher of Touchstone from 2012 until her retirement in 2018. Prior to joining Scribner in 1994, Ms. Moldow served as vice president, associate publisher, and editor in chief of the HarperCollins trade division. Previously, she was vice president and editor in chief of the Doubleday division of Bantam Doubleday Dell. With a career in publishing that began in 1966, Moldow also worked at Workman, Doubleday, Pocket Books, Washington Square Press, and Avon Books.

Bruno A. Quinson was CEO, publisher, and president of Henry Holt from 1988 until his retirement in 1996. Previously, he was president of the General Books and Reference Division at Macmillan Publishing and president of Larousse, a subsidiary of Librairie Larousse in Paris, France. He was made a Chevalier des Arts et Lettres by the French government in 1996. He serves as a trustee of the Museum of the City of New York, the Leopold Schepp Foundation, and Graywolf Publishing. Quinson has also served on a number of other boards including the Eudora Welty Foundation, Manhattan Theater Club, the Robert Frost Place, and the Lycée Français de New York.

Anya Schiffrin is director of Technology, Media, and Communications at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and a lecturer at the School of International and Public Affairs. Schiffrin is on the advisory board of the Open Society Foundation’s Program on Independent Journalism and of the Natural Resource Governance Institute. Her most recent book is Media Capture: How Money, Digital Platforms, and Governments Control the News.

Ava Seave is a Principal of Quantum Media. She has led consulting engagements and has provided senior-level management consulting services to many companies in a broad range of assignments for both for-profit and non-profit companies.

Before founding Quantum Media with four others in 1998, she was a general manager at three media companies: Scholastic Inc., The Village Voice, and TVSM, the country’s largest cable-listings magazine.

Ava has two adjunct appointments at Columbia University: At the Business School, where she teaches “Media and Entertainment Strategy Consulting” and at the Journalism School, where she teaches “Managing the 21st Century News Organization” with William Grueskin.

She has written numerous cases and teaching notes for journalism and MBA students, most recently a detailed look at the French business and policy news organization based in Paris, L’Opinion. She is co-author of two books, “The Story So Far: What We Know About the Business of Digital Journalism” (with Grueskin and Graves) and “Curse of the Mogul: What’s Wrong with the World’s Leading Media Companies” (with Knee and Greenwald). She was a contributing writer to Forbes.com for four years.

Seave graduated from Brown University with an A.B. (Phi Beta Kappa) and Harvard Business School with an M.B.A. She is on the Board of Trustees of The American Poetry Review and of De La Salle Academy, an independent middle school in New York City for academically talented, economically less advantaged students.

Haruo Shirane is chair of the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, professor of Japanese literature and culture, and a Columbia University Press author. Professor Shirane received his BA from Columbia College and his PhD from Columbia University.

Christina Staudt (Ph.D. Art History, Columbia University) has been chair or co-chair of Columbia University Seminar on Death since 2005. An advocate for looking at the dying experience as a holistic, human event that involves family and community, she is co-founder and past President of a not-for-profit organization offering educational programming, guidance, and resources to individuals at the end of life and their families. An active hospice patient volunteer, trained death doula, and member of several not-for-profit Advisory Boards, among them Columbia University’s DeathLAB, she combines hands-on engagement with scholarly writings and editing of published books and articles on thanatological themes.

Stephen J. Trachtenberg is University Professor Emeritus; University President Emeritus of GWU: BA, Columbia University; MPA, Harvard University; JD, Yale University; with twenty-five honorary doctoral degrees, including one from Columbia University. His teaching and research interest is in educational leadership. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the Council on Foreign Relations, and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He serves on many academic, civic, corporate, and international boards, including Bankinter’s Foundation for Technical Innovation (Spain). His previous government positions include that of attorney with the Atomic Energy Commission, legislative aide to former Congressman John Brademas, and special assistant to the U.S. education commissioner Harold Howe. He is married to Francine Zorn with whom he has two sons, both of whom are Columbia graduates, and four grandchildren, three boys and a girl. He recently moved to Lake Harriet, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Harriet Zuckerman is an American sociologist specializing in the sociology of science. Zuckerman served as senior vice president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and is professor emerita of Columbia University. Zuckerman received her AB degree from Vassar College and PhD from Columbia University and holds honorary degrees from Eötvös Loránd University (the University of Budapest) and Warwick University in the UK. She was professor of sociology at Columbia and chaired the Department of Sociology from 1978–1982. Zuckerman is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.