People
Broad expertise, exceptional support
The Moynihan Center is staffed by a team of dedicated professionals committed to advancing the Center's mission. With a diverse range of expertise, Moynihan Center leadership, staff, and advisors collaborate to devise innovative programs, foster cutting-edge research, and provide exceptional support to our students, fellows, and the broader community.
Moynihan Center Staff
Carlo Invernizzi Accetti's Bio
Executive Director
Carlo Invernizzi Accetti
Carlo Invernizzi Accetti is Executive Director of the Moynihan Center and Professor of Political Science at The City College of New York (CCNY). He is also Visiting Professor of European Politics at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) and Associate Researcher at the Center for European Studies of the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po).
His research is at the point of intersection of democratic theory and comparative EU/US party politics. It combines a historical approach with a concern for contemporary normative issues, relating in particular to the relationship between politics and religion, the rise of populism and technocracy as structuring poles of electoral competition, and the ideological reconfigurations taking place in advanced Western Democracies.
He has published three monographs, two edited volumes, and over two dozen articles in top international peer-reviewed journals on topics such as: populism and technocracy, political ideologies and party politics in Western Europe and the United States, militant democracy, referendums, and the philosophical foundations of human rights.
Professor Invernizzi Accetti is also a regular commentator on European and US political affairs for venues including: The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Guardian, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Daily News, La Repubblica, Quartz, Le Monde Diplomatique, and France 24.
Michael Miller's Bio
Managing Director
Michael Miller
Michael Miller is Managing Director of the Moynihan Center. He previously served as a distinguished lecturer of political science at City College. Prior to joining City College, Miller was a program director at the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), where he led the Media & Democracy program and the Just Tech program, and served as chief editor for the Just Tech Platform. Miller is a scholar of media, technology, and politics and received his PhD in political science from the Graduate Center at the City University of New York (CUNY).
Layana Abu Touq's Bio
Senior Program Manager
Layana Abu Touq
Layana Abu Touq is Senior Program Manager at the Moynihan Center. She is also the Co-Founder and Chief Policy Officer of ELNOR, an Ed-Tech nonprofit providing virtual English learning education to refugees in the US and Europe, and an Adjunct Lecturer in the Political Science Department at the Colin Powell School, City College. Her prior roles include serving as the Program Officer of the S Jay Levy Fellowship at City College, and Program Coordinator of the New York Public Interest Research Group. Abu Touq earned a B.A. in psychology with a minor in public policy from the City College of New York and an MSc in International Public Policy from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Selena Rodriguez's Bio
Operations Manager
Selena Rodriguez
Selena Rodriguez is the operations manager for the Moynihan Center. She is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University, where she majored in international studies and sociology. Prior to joining CCNY, Rodriguez served as the program associate for the Sloan Scholars Mentoring Network at the Social Science Research Council.
Farida Chickerie Ramkaran's Bio
Program Assistant
Farida Chickerie Ramkaran
Farida Chickerie Ramkaran is the Program Assistant for the Moynihan Center. She earned a B.A. in psychology from The City College of New York. Chickerie Ramkaran has prior experience as a data and research intern at the Social Science Research Council. While an undergraduate, she gained experience as a research assistant at the INTERSECT lab and wrote an honors thesis that explored stigma related to traditional and male-type depression.
Grace French's Bio
Communications Coordinator
Grace French
Grace French is the Communications Coordinator for the Moynihan Center. She earned a B.A. in communications from Westminster University in Salt Lake City, UT. French has prior experience in public relations, journalism, marketing, and non-profit communications.
Advisors
The Board of Advisors is currently under development and new board members will be added in 2024.
Sheri Berman's Bio
Public Scholars Advisory Committee
Sheri Berman
Professor of Political Science, Barnard College, Columbia University
Sheri Berman is a professor of political science at Barnard College, Columbia University. Her research interests include the development of democracy and dictatorship, European politics, populism and fascism, and the history of the left. Her most recent book was Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe: From the Ancien Régime to the Present Day. In addition to her scholarly work, she has published in a wide variety of non-scholarly publications including The New York Times, the Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, VOX, The Guardian and Dissent. She is on the boards of The Journal of Democracy, Political Science Quarterly, Dissent and Persuasion.
Daniel DiSalvo's Bio
Chair - Public Scholars Advisory Committee
Daniel DiSalvo
Professor and Chair, Political Science, The City College of New York
Daniel DiSalvo is professor and chair of political science in the Colin Powell School at the City College of New York–CUNY and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. His scholarship focuses on American political parties, elections, labor unions, state government, and public policy. He is the author of Engines of Change: Party Factions in American Politics, 1868–2010 (Oxford 2012) and Government Against Itself: Public Union Power and Its Consequences (Oxford 2015). His articles have appeared in Political Science Quarterly, Political Research Quarterly, Policy Studies Journal, and American Political Thought among others. DiSalvo also writes frequently for popular publications, including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Atlantic Monthly, National Affairs, City Journal, Los Angeles Times, and the New York Daily News. He was previously the co-editor of The Forum: A Journal of Applied Research in Contemporary Politics and serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Policy History. He has held visiting appointments at Princeton University's James Madison Program and the CUNY Graduate Center.
Amana Fontanella-Khan's Bio
Public Scholars Advisory Committee
Amana Fontanella-Khan
Opinion Editor, The Guardian
Amana Fontanella-Khan is the Opinion Editor of the Guardian US. She was formerly a Contributing Editor at Vogue India. She is a contributor for the New York Times, Financial Times, Financial Times Weekend Magazine, Slate Magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, VOGUE, Conde Nast Traveller and others.
She lived in India for four and a half years and is now based in New York City. The Pink Sari Revolution is her first book.
Christina Greer's Bio
Public Scholars Advisory Committee
Christina Greer
Inaugural Moynihan Public Scholar, Associate Professor of Political Science, Fordham University
Christina Greer is an inaugural Moynihan Public Scholar and Associate Professor of Political Science at Fordham University, Lincoln Center (Manhattan) campus. Her research and teaching focus on American politics, Black ethnic politics, campaigns and elections, and public opinion. She is the author of Black Ethnics: Race, Immigration, and the Pursuit of the American Dreamand co-editor of Black Politics in Transition: Immigration, Suburbanization, and Gentrification.
Greer writes a weekly column for The Amsterdam News, one of the oldest Black newspapers in the U.S., and is a frequent political commentator on several media outlets, primarily MSNBC, WNYC, and NY1. She is the co-host of the New York centered podcast FAQ-NYC, is a political analyst at thegrio.com and host of the podcast quiz show The Blackest Questions at thegrio.com.
Greer is a member of the boards of The Tenement Museum in NYC, The Mark Twain House in Hartford, CT, and Community Change in Washington, DC, and serves on the Advisory Board at Tufts University. She received her BA in Political Science from Tufts University and her MA, MPhil, and PhD in Political Science from Columbia University.
Ira Katznelson's Bio
Public Scholars Advisory Committee
Ira Katznelson
Ruggles Professor, Political Science and History, Columbia University
Ira Katznelson is Ruggles Professor of Political Science and History, and Deputy Director, Columbia World Projects. His 2013 Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time was awarded the Bancroft Prize in History and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award in Political Science. Other books include Southern Nation: Congress and White Supremacy After Reconstruction (2018, co-authored with David Bateman and John Lapinski), and Liberal Beginnings: A Republic for the Moderns (2008, co-authored with Andreas Kalyvas). His most recent book is Time Counts: Quantitative Methods for Historical Social Science (2022, co-authored with Gregory Wawro).
Professor Katznelson, a fellow of the British Academy, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society, is a former president both of the American Political Science Association and the Social Science Research Council. He earned his B.A. at Columbia College and his Ph.D. in History at the University of Cambridge, where in 2017-18, he was Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions. He also has taught at the University of Chicago and the New School for Social Research. From September 2019 through August 2021 he served as Columbia's Interim Provost.
Yuval Levin's Bio
Public Scholars Advisory Committee
Yuval Levin
Director and Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
Yuval Levin is the director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he also holds the Beth and Ravenel Curry Chair in Public Policy. The founder and editor of National Affairs, he is also a senior editor at The New Atlantis, a contributing editor at National Review, and a contributing opinion writer at The New York Times.
At AEI, Dr. Levin and scholars in the Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies research division study the foundations of self-government and the future of law, regulation, and constitutionalism. They also explore the state of American social, political, and civic life, focusing on the preconditions necessary for family, community, and country to flourish.
Dr. Levin served as a member of the White House domestic policy staff under President George W. Bush. He was also executive director of the President’s Council on Bioethics and a congressional staffer at the member, committee, and leadership levels.
In addition to being interviewed frequently on radio and television, Dr. Levin has published essays and articles in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and Commentary. He is the author of several books on political theory and public policy, most recently “A Time to Build: From Family and Community to Congress and the Campus, How Recommitting to Our Institutions Can Revive the American Dream” (Basic Books, 2020).
He holds an MA and PhD from the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago.
Rajan Menon's Bio
Public Scholars Advisory Committee
Rajan Menon
Anne and Bernard Spitzer Professor (Emeritus), International Relations, The City College of New York
Rajan Menon is the Anne and Bernard Spitzer Professor (Emeritus) of International Relations at the Powell School, City College of New York, Senior Research Scholar at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, Columbia University, and Non-Resident Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He previously taught at Vanderbilt University and Lehigh University, where he was the Monroe J. Rathbone Distinguished Professor of International Relations. While a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow in 1989-90, he served as Special Assistant for Arms Control and National Security to Rep. Stephen J. Solarz (D-NY) of the House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee.
Menon was Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, Fellow at the Carnegie Council on Ethics in International Affairs and the New America Foundation, Academic Fellow at the Carnegie Corporation, and Research Scholar at the Kennan Institute, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (the “Wilson Center”).
His books include Conflict in Ukraine: The Unwinding of the Post-Cold War Order, coauthored with Eugene Rumer (MIT Press, 2015) and The Conceit of Humanitarian Intervention (Oxford University Press) He has written for The New York Times, Foreign Affairs, the Boston Review, Foreign Policy, Politico, National Interest, the New York Times Book Review, Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, Financial Times, the Guardian, Christian Science Monitor, Newsday, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, US News & World Report, CNN, the Nation, and The Washington Post. He has appeared on ABC, CNN, MSNBC, the BBC, NPR, France 24 Television, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Radio Australia.
Graciela Mochkofsky's Bio
Public Scholars Advisory Committee
Graciela Mochkofsky
Dean, Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, The City University of New York
Graciela Mochkofsky was appointed dean of the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism by the CUNY Board of Trustees on June 27, 2022. The third dean since the school opened in 2006, she officially assumed the position on August 1.
Mochkofsky joined the Newmark J-School in 2016 to launch the nation’s first bilingual master’s journalism concentration in English and Spanish. Three years later, she added the Center for Community Media (CCM) to her portfolio, serving as executive director to an enterprise that supports hundreds of news outlets covering immigrants and communities of color across the country.
Under Mochkofsky’s leadership, the Newmark J-School trained six cohorts of bilingual journalists who are working in newsrooms across the country. She also hosted five Latino Media Summits, both in person and remotely; conceived and developed separate Latino, Black, and Asian media initiatives; and led a groundbreaking project that helped New York community media receive $25 million in city advertising in the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic.
All the while, she has continued her journalistic work, as a writer for The Paris Review, The Atlantic, and The New Yorker, where she produces a monthly column on Latinx culture and politics.
A native of Argentina, she is a winner of the 2018 Maria Moors Cabot prize for outstanding reporting across Latin America and the Caribbean.
She was a political correspondent with La Nación in Argentina, has been a columnist and blogger for El País in Spain, and a contributor to publications in Latin America, Europe, and the U.S., including The California Sunday Magazine, The New Yorker online, and The Paris Review blog.
She is the author of six nonfiction books in Spanish, two of them about the relationship between press and political power in her home country. Her latest book, The Prophet of the Andes, about a Peruvian Catholic community that converted to Orthodox Judaism and emigrated to the Jewish settlements in the West Bank, was published in English by Knopf in August.
Mochkofsky has served as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, a Cullman fellow at the New York Public Library, a Prins Foundation fellow at the Center for Jewish History, a visiting scholar at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University, and a visiting scholar at the Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life at Columbia University.
She has taught undergraduate courses in reporting and writing and investigative and literary journalism in Buenos Aires, and she has lectured at Princeton, the CUNY Graduate Center, NYU’s Institute for the Humanities, and many other universities. Mochkofsky has also served as a juror for the Gabriel García Márquez Foundation Journalism Prize, Latin America’s most important journalism award.
She sits on the boards of Report for America, Radio Ambulante, and the Type Media Center, and is a member of the Advisory Circle of the American Journalism Project.
She earned her bachelor’s in journalism and communications at Universidad del Salvador in Buenos Aires and has an M.S. in Journalism from the Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.
Rosemonde Pierre-Louis's Bio
Public Scholars Advisory Committee
Rosemonde Pierre-Louis
Executive Director, McSilver Institute For Poverty and Research, New York University
A highly-recognized public sector leader, Rosemonde is known for driving social and economic change. She has dedicated her career to helping the most vulnerable receive access to justice, services, and support.
Rosemonde previously served as Chief Operating Officer at the McSilver Institute, responsible for the day-to-day operations of the institute, as well as the administrative, finance, external affairs and communications departments. She was the host of season two of the McSilver Institute podcast, Black Boys and Men: Changing The Narrative.
From 2014-2016 Rosemonde served as Senior Adviser to the NYC Commission on Gender Equity (CGE). Previously, she served as Commissioner of Mayor’s Office to Combat Domestic Violence (OCDV), which oversees the citywide delivery of domestic violence services and operates 5 Family Justice Centers which provide comprehensive services to survivors of intimate partner violence, sexual assault and trafficking.
From 2006-2013 Rosemonde served as Manhattan Deputy Borough President, responsible for overseeing several of the Office’s key initiatives related to transportation, community board reform, sustainability and criminal justice. Prior to becoming Deputy Borough President, she held leadership positions at public interest and community development organizations such as Sanctuary for Families, Network for Women Services, and Harlem Legal Services. Rosemonde also served for six years as an adjunct professor at Fordham University School of Law.
Rosemonde has been a leading voice, advocate and mobilizing force on issues impacting the Haitian community. Following the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti, she was appointed by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to serve on the five-member U.S. delegation at the United Nations Haiti Donor Pre-Conference in Martinique, West Indies. Rosemonde co-founded and currently serves as Chairperson of the Haitian Roundtable, which is dedicated to redefining the narrative about Haiti and recognizing excellence in the Haitian community.
Among many other achievements, Rosemonde is the Founder of the Frederick Douglass Boulevard Alliance (FDBA), serves on the board of New American Leaders Action Fund (NALAF), as well as on the Advisors Council of Eleanor’s Legacy. She is an Executive Board Member of the Committee for Ranked Choice Voting NYC and was appointed by New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) in April 2022 to a blue ribbon “Fareness” panel to address solutions to reduce fare evasion. In 2021, Rosemonde received the Public Servant of The Year Award from the Metropolitan Black Bar Association (MBBA).
Rosemonde completed her undergraduate studies in political science at Tufts University, and earned a law degree at Case Western University School of Law.
Reihan Salam's Bio
Public Scholars Advisory Committee
Reihan Salam
President, The Manhattan Institute for Policy Research
Reihan Salam is the fifth president of the Manhattan Institute. Since joining MI in 2019, Mr. Salam has overseen the creation and launch of a number of new initiatives, including the Policing and Public Safety Initiative, dedicated to addressing the nation’s crisis of urban violence. He has recruited a number of the nation’s leading scholars, journalists, and civic leaders to help foster economic opportunity, educational excellence, individual liberty, and the rule of law in America and its great cities.
Mr. Salam is the author of Melting Pot or Civil War? (Sentinel, 2018), the coauthor, with Ross Douthat, of Grand New Party (Doubleday, 2008), and a contributing editor at The Atlantic, National Affairs, and National Review. Before joining MI, Mr. Salam served as the executive editor of National Review and a National Review Institute Policy Fellow.
Wendy Schiller's Bio
Public Scholars Advisory Committee
Wendy Schiller
Alison S. Ressler Professor, Political Science, Brown University
Wendy Schiller is Alison S. Ressler Professor of Political Science, Professor of International and Public Affairs, and Director of the Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy at Brown University. She did her undergraduate work in political science at the University of Chicago, served on the staffs of Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Governor Mario Cuomo, and then earned her PhD from the University of Rochester. After fellowships at the Brookings Institution and Princeton University, she came to Brown in 1994. She teaches popular courses titled The American Presidency, Introduction to the American Political Process, and Congress and Public Policy. Among books she has authored or co-authored are Inequality Across State Lines: How Policymakers Have Failed Domestic Violence Victims in the United States (Cambridge University Press) Electing the Senate: Indirect Democracy before the Seventeenth Amendment (Princeton University Press), Gateways to Democracy: An Introduction to American Government (Cengage), The Contemporary Congress (Thomson-Wadsworth), and Partners and Rivals: Representation in U.S. Senate Delegations (Princeton University Press). She has also published articles in the American Journal of Political Science, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Studies in American Political Development, Perspectives on Politics, Journal of Women, Politics & Policy, State Politics and Policy Quarterly, and the Journal of Politics. Schiller has been a contributor to MSNBC, NPR, CNN.com, and Bloomberg News. She provides local political commentary to the Providence Journal, WPRO radio, RIPBS A Lively Experiment, and is the political analyst for WJAR10, the local NBC affiliate in Providence.
Basil Smikle's Bio
Public Scholars Advisory Committee
Basil Smikle
Professor of Practice and Director, M.S. in Nonprofit Management Program, Columbia University School of Professional Studies
Dr. Basil Smikle Jr. is a Professor of Practice and Director of the M.S. program in nonprofit management in the School of Professional Studies at Columbia University. As an MSNBC Political Analyst, he regularly shares his insights on national media outlets.
With 20 years in higher education and 30 years devoted to public service, his influence and insights span a broad spectrum of contemporary issues including, civic engagement, nonprofit advocacy and communications, electoral politics and education policy. His contributions earned him numerous accolades, including the New York Urban League Community Service Award, the Bronx Branch NAACP W.E.B. Dubois Scholar Award, citations from the New York State Governor and Comptroller, and a Proclamation from the New York City Council for his unwavering commitment to public service and education equity.
Prior to his role at Columbia, Basil was the Distinguished Lecturer and Director of the Public Policy Program at the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College-City University of New York.
In 2015, he was appointed by former Governor David Paterson to serve as the Executive Director of the New York State Democratic Party where he was the “second highest ranking Democrat” in the State. Basil worked closely with elected officials and community leaders to manage electoral and fundraising strategies for the State. He recruited candidates for political office and worked closely with the Democratic National Committee to create grassroots mobilization programs and act as a Party surrogate during the 2016 cycle
Basil's impactful career also includes serving as a senior aide to Hillary Rodham Clinton on her Senate staff, where he provided invaluable counsel on state-wide policy and politics. His work and collaboration left a substantial impact on the State of New York, with Mrs. Clinton lauding Basil as a "key advisor and tremendous public servant" committed to ensuring all voices are heard.
Basil holds a PhD in Politics and Education and an MPA from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Science from Cornell University.
He serves as a Trustee of The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and sits on the boards of the Center for Charter Excellence, The Opportunity Charter School in Harlem, Oliver Scholars, FoodCorps, and The Association to Benefit Children.
There is a more powerful connection than people think between the world of ideas and the world of practical politics.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan