Board of Advisers

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Jim Ottaway Jr. (Chair)

Jim Ottaway Jr. is the former chairman of Ottaway Newspapers, Inc., the community newspaper subsidiary of Dow Jones & Co., Inc. After 43 years working in various positions, he also retired from the board of directors of Dow Jones in 2005. His career has included stints as a reporter, associate editor, bureau chief, statehouse correspondent, management trainee, editor, publisher, and, ultimately, chairman of the board. His board memberships have included: World Press Freedom Committee, Doctors Without Borders, Human Rights Watch USA, International Center for Journalists, World Wildlife Fund, Urban Coalition, American School of Classical Studies at Athens, The Associated Press, Walkill Valley Land Trust, and the Archeological Institute of America. He is currently the chairman of the board of the Storm King Art Center. Ottaway is a life trustee of Bard College and chairman of the board of advisers of the Bard Center for Civic Engagement. In 2017, he received the Bard Medal, the highest award given by the Bard–St. Stephen’s Alumni/ae Association, which honors individuals whose efforts on behalf of Bard have significantly advanced the welfare of the College. He is a graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy and Yale University, where he was the editor of the Yale Daily News.

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James Friedlich

Jim Frieldich was appointed executive director and CEO of the Lenfest Institute for Journalism in September 2016. He served previously as CEO of Empirical Media Advisors, a consulting firm focused on the digital transformation of major news organizations. Prior to that he was a founding partner in ZelnickMedia, a New York–based private equity partnership. Frieldich specializes in investments in digital media and professional information and business services. In 2001, he cofounded ZM Capital, a New York–based media investment firm. From 2001 to 2010, he led the firm’s investment in publishing and information services. He was integrally involved in the acquisition and management of Time Life (direct-response media), Take-Two Interactive (video games), Alloy Media (television and digital media), and ITN Networks (broadcast television). He served as executive chairman of Naylor LLC, the leading business-to-business media services provider for trade associations throughout North America, a ZM Capital portfolio company. Frieldich was a seed investor in Business Insider, a digital business news publisher. He attended Dartmouth College, is a graduate of Wesleyan University with a BA in English, and received his MBA from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. He serves on the board of directors of Dice Holdings (NYSE), WFMU (public radio), The Door and University Settlement (social services), and the Bard Center for Civic Engagement.

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George A. Kellner

George A. Kellner is the founder, chief investment officer, and chief executive officer at Kellner Capital, LLC. He has vast investment experience. He founded Kellner Capital, LLC in 1981. Prior to this, he was a senior vice president and established the arbitrage department at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette. Before that, he was a vice president and house counsel at the Madison Fund, where he had broad responsibilities as a financial analyst and portfolio manager. He began his professional career as a securities lawyer at the Wall Street law firm of Carter, Ledyard, and Milburn. He holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation and is a former adjunct assistant professor of finance at New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business. He has a JD from Columbia Law School, an MBA from NYU, and a BA from Trinity College. He is also a trustee of Bard College.

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Nandini Ramanujam

Professor Nandini Ramanujam is the Co-Director and Director of Programs of the Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism at McGill University's Faculty of Law. She also directs the International Human Rights Internship Program as well as Independent Human Rights Internships Program.  She is the McGill representative for the Scholars at Risk Network and is a member of the Steering Committee of the Scholars at Risk Network, Canada section..
Nandini Ramanujam’s research and teaching interests include Law and Development, Institutions and Governance, Economic Justice, Food Security and Food Safety, the role of civil society and the Fourth Estate (Media) in promotion of the rule of law, as well as the exploration of interconnections between field based human rights work and theoretical discourses.
She was appointed Associate Professor (Professional) in the Faculty of Law in April 2014, and then appointed to the rank of Full Professor (Professional) in June 2020. She was named co-director of the Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism in 2021.
Before joining McGill's Faculty of Law, Dr Ramanujam was involved in the successful systemic reform of higher education in the former communist countries of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, including Aga Khan’s Central Asian University and Smolny College in St. Petersburg. She has sat as Director of the Higher Education Support Program of the Open Society Institute in Budapest and Regional Director of Baltic and Eurasian Programs of Civic Education Project. She also has extensive experience in human rights issues, strategic planning, governance and programming, with a particular focus on education and civil society. She has been involved in the development of strategic planning for human rights institutions such as the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights and the Open Society Institute’s Disability and Law Network. She served on the Board of Directors of the Canadian Human Rights Foundation (Equitas) from 2001-2008, and was President of Board between 2003-2008. She is a member of the Board of Directors of Centraide of Greater Montreal.
Nandini Ramanujam received her Doctorate in Economics from Oxford University for her dissertation on Price Mechanism in Russia: Its role in the Old Planning and the New Markets. She holds a M.Phil and a M.A. in Economics with 1st class honours from Bhopal University.

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Jill Lundquist

Jill Lundquist is currently second vice president of the Lifetime Learning Institute at Bard College and has served on the LLI Council for the past three years. During that time she has been responsible for developing both a policy manual and an operations manual for the organization. She has also served on LLI’s Long Range Planning Committee as well as its Planning and Evaluation Committee. She is currently chairing the Bylaws Committee that is completing a thorough review and revision of the organization’s bylaws. Lundquist retired in 2011 from her position as director of admissions at Poughkeepsie Day School. Certified in education and social work, she has had a long career as an educator and administrator in educational and human services organizations. She previously served as director of the Mid-Hudson Family Mediation Center, was on the clinical staff of the Catskill Family Institute, and was director of community education for Ulster County Mental Health Services. She was a member of the Board of Education for the Red Hook Central School District, ran an enrichment program for children in the Red Hook schools, and, early in her career, worked in the grants office at Bard College.
Lundquist is also a member of Hudson Valley Strong and of Re-Sisters, a group of area women committed to political activism. She is an active volunteer for Sinterklaas, working year-round to plan and raise funds for this spectacular Hudson Valley community event. She is a longtime resident of Barrytown, where she lives with her husband, Doug Baz. They have three adult children and one granddaughter.

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Peter James O’ Donnell

Peter James O’Donnell (“Jamie”) is a Managing Director and co-founder of UCL Asia Limited, an investment holding company based in Hong Kong. Mr. O’Donnell also is a co-founder and Director of the Genomic Trust Pte. Ltd., which addresses critical issues of personal privacy, data management, and advances in health that are driven by developments in genomics. Prior to cofounding UCL Asia in 1999, O’Donnell was a director at General Oriental Investments Limited, the industrial holding company of the late Sir James Goldsmith. He has also worked with EXOR SpA, advising that company on investment opportunities both in Asia and around the world. In this capacity he served as EXOR’s representative to the Board of JRE (i.e., Jardine-Rothschild-EXOR) Holdings Limited. He also currently serves as vice chairman and board member of Singer Asia Limited, the leading consumer durables and consumer finance provider in several countries in Southeast and South Asia.

From 2015 to 2019, O’Donnell acted as a Founding Trustee of Fulbright University Vietnam, Vietnam’s first non-profit, fully independent university following a liberal arts and sciences model. Fulbright University is supported at the most senior levels of the governments of the United States and Vietnam and has a strong relationship with Bard College. 
O’Donnell is an alumnus of both Harvard College and Harvard Business School. He is a United States citizen and a permanent resident of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

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Alexander Papachristou

Alexander Papachristou joined the Vance Center as executive director in January 2012. He directs the organization’s overall operations and focuses on its programmatic and institutional initiatives, as well as fundraising. He previously was president of the Near East Foundation, a participatory, community-based economic and social development organization working in Arab and African countries. For the preceding 18 years, Papachristou engaged in cross-border corporate finance in advisory and proprietary roles: he served as managing director and general counsel at NCH Capital, Inc, which invests in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe; he lived in Russia from 1989 to 1993, where he opened and ran the Moscow office of White & Case. Papachristou also worked in the law firm of Clifford & Warnke in Washington, D.C., and was policy assistant to New York Governor Mario C. Cuomo. He served as law clerk to US District Judge Myron H. Thompson in the Middle District of Alabama. Papachristou is a member of the board of the Media Development Loan Fund, as well as the advisory councils of Princeton University’s Near East Studies Program and Bard College’s Institute for International Liberal Education. In late 2011, the New Press published Blind Goddess: A Race and Justice Reader, which Papachristou edited. He received an LLM and JD from Harvard Law School and an AB from Princeton University, as well as Arabic language training at the American University in Cairo.

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Joel Rosenthal

Joel H. Rosenthal has served as president of the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs since 1995. He is also adjunct professor, New York University and chairman of the Bard College Globalization and International Affairs program in New York City. As a scholar and teacher, Rosenthal has focused on ethics in US foreign policy, with special emphasis on issues of war and peace, human rights, and pluralism. His first book, Righteous Realists (1991), is a study of American realists. His edited volume Ethics & International Affairs: A Reader is a compilation of essays from major figures in the field and is widely used in college and university courses. Throughout his career, Rosenthal has worked with partners in professional military education, most notably, the U.S. Naval Academy, U.S. Naval War College, and U.S. Military Academy, West Point. In addition to his ongoing teaching duties, he lectures frequently at universities and public venues across the United States and around the world. Rosenthal received his Ph.D. from Yale University and a BA from Harvard University.

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Felicitas Thorne

Felicitas S. Thorne was born and raised in postwar Germany, came to the US in 1969, and became a citizen in 1981. She received her Abitur in 1962 and earned a Physical Therapist Diploma in 1966, working until 1969 in Munich, Germany. Since then, she has lived in Millbrook, New York. She is married and the mother of two grown children. Since 1996, Thorne has been getting to know Bard College and enriching her life by enjoying the Bard Music Festival, lectures, and events, always welcoming new friends at Bard. Her interests in education, music, and the performing arts have made Bard her second home. She believes in the power of a liberal education and the performing arts to create understanding, communication, and respect for diverse cultures, thereby promoting world peace. She is a member of the Bard Music Festival Board and of the advisory boards of The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts and the American Symphony Orchestra. She also serves on the board of the Cardinal Hayes Home for children in Millbrook.

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Jonathan Becker (ex officio)

Jonathan Becker is the director of the Center for Civic Engagement at Bard College, where he also serves as vice president for academic affairs, associate professor of political studies, and director, Globalization and International Studies. He is the author of Soviet and Russian Press Coverage of the United States: Press, Politics and Identity in Transition (1999, 2002) and articles and chapters in a variety of publications, including the European Journal of Communication, Journalism and Mass Communications Quarterly, and the Globalist, among others. Previously, he served as assistant vice president of the Central European University in Budapest and the European director of the Civic Education Project. He has also served as cochair of the Higher Education Group of the US/Russian Civil Society Partnership Program and as a consultant to the National Intelligence Council on its Global Trends 2020 project. Becker earned his BA from McGill University and his D.Phil. from St. Antony’s College, Oxford.

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Susan Gillespie

Susan H. Gillespie has worked at Bard since 1985, following positions at the New York Public Library and the New York Zoological Society. Before the Institute was created in 1998, she served as Bard’s vice president for development and public affairs, in which capacity she honed a useful skill in raising funds. She is an ex-officio member of the board of overseers of Smolny College and serves as a member of the board of advisers of Words without Borders. She studied and lived in Germany for six and a half years; this formative experience led her to international education as well as to an active career as a translator from German to English. Her published translations include philosophy (Theodor W. Adorno and others), musicology, fiction, poetry, and correspondence. Translation, dialogue, and reciprocity have become the watchwords of her professional career and have inspired a recent interest in the neuroscientific basis of translation and education. She is a graduate of Radcliffe College of Harvard University.

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David Becker

Surgeon and Clinical Assistant Professor of Dermatology, Weill-Cornell Medical Center
David Becker is a skin cancer surgeon in New York City. He received his medical training at the University of California, San Francisco; Yale University Medical Center; and Harvard Medical School, where he completed a fellowship in Mohs micrographic surgery and cutaneous oncology. He remained on at Massachusetts General Hospital as an NIH research fellow in the molecular biology of basal cell carcinoma. He was in full-time academic medicine for seven years and initiated the program in Mohs surgery / cutaneous oncology at the Weill-Cornell Medical Center, where he remains clinical assistant professor of dermatology.
Becker now manages his own surgical practice in Manhattan, and continues to speak nationally and internationally as well as publish research on skin malignancies and surgery. He is the former president of the New York Dermatologic Society. He has a home in Claverack, New York, and is active in the Columbia County Land Conservancy.

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Christina Dawson

Christina “Nina” Dawson is the Director of the Youth Bureau and is the Human Rights Commissioner for Ulster County. Ms. Dawson has served two term as Alderwoman on the Kingston Common Council and is Chair of the Community Development Block Grant Committee. She is known as a passionate advocate for social justice and prison reform, where she has served as an advisor to many community initiatives including My Brothers Keeper (MBK) and the Kingston Police Commission. Prior to her appointment with the County she worked as an administrator at Heath Alliance Hospital in Kingston. Ms Dawson studied at the University of Albany and was born and raised in Kingston.  She is a recipient of the 2018 YWCA Women of the Year award.

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Harry A. Johnson Jr. ’17