The New America Foundation has appointed Anne-Marie Slaughter as the organization’s next president as of Sept. 1, 2013. The foundation calls itself a nonpartisan public policy think tank, though its reputation is more progressive than any other. Its annual budget is more than $20 million and it concentrates on a range of subjects, including national security, health, energy and work-family life.
Dr. Slaughter, a Princeton professor, former dean of its Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and a former director of policy planning at the United States State Department, will succeed Steve Coll, who has just left to become dean of the Columbia University School of Journalism. Dr. Slaughter, who is a New America board member, will remain at her base in Princeton and commute to New America’s Washington, D.C. office as well as enhance the work of the New York office. She will transition at Princeton as a professor emeritus.
“Anne-Marie Slaughter is a creative, inspiring thinker who has played a critical role in the institution’s success as a board member, and we are thrilled for her to lead New America in what promises to be an exceptional period for both the institution and society,” said David Bradley, chairman of the board’s search committee and owner of The Atlantic Media Company, which publishes The Atlantic. “Steve Coll firmly established New America as an innovative policy institute that’s tackling today’s greatest challenges, and she is the right person to build on that foundation.”
Dr. Slaughter is known for her strong views on women and gender roles in American society. Her essay in The Atlantic, “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All,” published in 2012, generated enormous interest among readers trying to come to terms with a work-life balance. She speaks openly about her personal experiences in managing her daily life as a mother, wife and careerist.
As she said of her new job, “On the personal front, leaving the academy for New America will be a new and exciting adventure, allowing me to combine my foreign policy and social policy interests, help build a genuinely 21st century think tank, and combine career and family in a way that works for both.”
Dr. Slaughter has written or edited six books, including “A New World Order” and “The Idea That Is America: Keeping Faith With Our Values in a Dangerous World.” She received a B.A. from Princeton, and a master’s degree and doctorate in international relations from Oxford. She has a law degree from Harvard.
Dulcie Leimbach is a co-founder, with Barbara Crossette, of PassBlue. For PassBlue and other publications, Leimbach has reported from New York and overseas from West Africa (Burkina Faso and Mali) and from Europe (Scotland, Sicily, Vienna, Budapest, Kyiv, Armenia, Iceland and The Hague). She has provided commentary on the UN for BBC World Radio, ARD German TV and Radio, NHK’s English channel, Background Briefing with Ian Masters/KPFK Radio in Los Angeles and the Foreign Press Association.
Previously, she was an editor for the Coalition for the UN Convention Against Corruption; from 2008 to 2011, she was the publications director of the United Nations Association of the USA. Before UNA, Leimbach was an editor at The New York Times for more than 20 years, editing and writing for most sections of the paper, including the Magazine, Book Review and Op-Ed. She began her reporting career in small-town papers in San Diego, Calif., and Boulder, Colo., graduating to the Rocky Mountain News in Denver and then working at The Times. Leimbach has been a fellow at the CUNY Graduate Center’s Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies as well as at Yaddo, the artists’ colony in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.; taught news reporting at Hofstra University; and guest-lectured at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the CUNY Journalism School. She graduated from the University of Colorado and has an M.F.A. in writing from Warren Wilson College in North Carolina. She lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.
