Dr. Mahnaz Ispahani Bartos

Dr. Mahnaz Ispahani Bartos serves on the Public Design Commission as the representative of the New York Public Library, where she has been a Trustee since 2003 and sits on the Executive Committee of the Board. She chairs the Board’s Program and Policy Committee and is a Member of the Capital Planning and Real Estate Committee. Mahnaz spent 30 years as a foreign policy and international security professional and served for a decade as a program executive at the Ford Foundation. She has been a Senior Fellow and remains a Life Member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She has also been a Fellow at the Belfer Center, Harvard University, and The Woodrow Wilson Center at the Smithsonian. A widely published author, she has been advisor and consultant to institutions including the Carnegie Corporation, Luce Foundation, the Open Society Institute, and the Asia Society. She is a Trustee of the American Assembly. She received her B.A., Phi Beta Kappa, from Wellesley College where she also served on the Board of Trustees. She received an M.A.L.D and a Ph.D. from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.