Staff
Peter Wyatt Wood
President
pwood@nas.org
Peter Wood is an anthropologist and former provost. He was appointed president of the NAS in January 2009. Before that he served as NAS’s executive director (2007-2008), and as provost of The King’s College in New York City (2005-2007).
Dr. Wood was a tenured member of the Anthropology Department at Boston University, where he also held a variety of administrative positions, including associate provost and president’s chief of staff. He also oversaw the university’s scholarly publications and served as acting university librarian.
He received his Ph.D. in anthropology in 1987 from the University of Rochester. His dissertation, Quoting Heaven, examined the emergence of an American folk religion and pilgrimage center in rural Wisconsin. His undergraduate degree is from Haverford College (1975) and he has a master’s degree in library science from Rutgers University (1977).
Dr. Wood is the author of A Bee in the Mouth: Anger in America Now (Encounter Books, 2007) and of Diversity: The Invention of a Concept (Encounter Books, 2003) which won the Caldwell Award for Leadership in Higher Education from the John Locke Foundation. These books extend his anthropological interest in examining emergent themes in modern American culture.
In addition to his scholarly work, Dr. Wood has published several hundred articles in print and online journals, such as Partisan Review and National Review Online, and the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Ashley Thorne
Director, Center for the Study of the Curriculum
thorne@nas.org
Ashley joined the NAS staff as director of communications in 2008 and became director of the Center for the Study of the Curriculum in 2012. She received her undergraduate degree in politics, philosophy, and economics from The King’s College in 2007. In 2010 she published a chapter, “Ducking the Coffins: How I Became an Edu-Con,” in an anthology edited by Jonah Goldberg, Proud to Be Right.
MICHAEL T. TOSCANO
Director of Research Projects
toscano@nas.org
Michael Toscano joined the NAS staff in 2012 as Director of Research Projects after working as a research fellow on the “What Does Bowdoin Teach?” project. He received his bachelor’s degree in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics from The King’s College in 2008. Prior to working at NAS, he helped develop the curriculum for a two-semester Western Civilization sequence at The King’s College.
Glenn M. Ricketts
Public Affairs Director
ricketts@nas.org
Public Affairs Director Glenn Ricketts joined the NAS staff in 1989. He was the founding president of the NAS New Jersey state affiliate, and served for 20 years on the NAS board of directors. A graduate of Temple University in Philadelphia, he received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago. He is also professor of political science and U.S. history at Raritan Valley Community College in Somerville New Jersey, where he has taught since 1982.
Carol Iannone
Editor-at-Large, Academic Questions
Felicia Sanzari Chernesky
Managing Editor, Academic Questions
chernesky@nas.org
Felicia Sanzari Chernesky returned to the position of managing editor of Academic Questions in October 2007. She graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania with a BA in English, majoring in American poetry, with a minor in French literature and a concentration in Latin. She began working for the National Association of Scholars in 1987, and served as an assistant director, editor of the NAS newsletter, NAS Update, and managing editor of Academic Questions. In 1993 she left full-time employment to begin raising a family. While remaining an independent consultant to the NAS, she also freelanced as an editor and writer. A published poet, she is pursuing an MFA in Poetry with an Emphasis in Formal Verse at Western State College of Colorado. She is also active in the New Jersey chapter of the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, and is represented by The Bent Agency.
Wanda Cooley
Operations Director
cooley@nas.org
Wanda J. Cooley has over twenty years of experience as an administrative assistant, working within both private and public sectors. She received her associate’s degree in business administration from Meadows Draughn College. Wanda became a citizen of New Jersey after leaving her native city, New Orleans, due to Hurricane Katrina. She joined the National Association of Scholars as Secretary in November 2005 and became Director of Operations in 2011.
Board of Directors
HERBERT LONDON
Chairman
herb@hudson.org
Herbert I. London is President Emeritus of Hudson Institute. He served as the Institute's President from December 1997 to March 2011. He is professor emeritus and the former John M. Olin Professor of Humanities at New York University. London was responsible for creating the Gallatin School of Individualized Study in 1972 and was its dean until 1992. This school was organized to promote the study of "great books" and classic texts. Herbert London is a graduate of Columbia University, 1960 and the recipient of a Ph.D. from New York University, 1966.
He is currently on the Hudson Institute Board of Trustees; the Board of Directors of the National Chamber Foundation; the Board of Advisors of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, Inc., the Editorial Advisory Board for the Texas Education Review, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, New York City Cultural Affairs Commission, American History and Civics Advisory Board, and the International Institute of Strategic Studies. He formerly served on the Board of Governors at St. John's College and the Board of Overseers at the Center for Naval Analyses. He is an affiliated professor at the University of Haifa in Israel.
STEVE BALCH
Founder
balch@nas.org
Stephen H. Balch was the founding president of the National Association of Scholars. He holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of California and was for fourteen years a member of the faculty of the Department of Government and Public Administration of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, part of the City University of New York. In 2007 he received the National Humanities Medal from President George W. Bush. In 2009 he was the recipient of the Jeane Jordan Kirkpatrick Academic Freedom Award from the American Conservative Union Foundation and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.
Daniel Asia
Evelyn Avery
Jay A. Bergman
Peter Berkowitz
Philip J. Clements
Ward Connerly
Midge Decter
George W. Dent, Jr.
Candace de Russy
David Gordon
Gail L. Heriot
Thomas Klingenstein
Robert C. Koons
Barry Latzer
Thomas K. Lindsay
Wight Martindale
David D. Mulroy
Anne D. Neal
B. Nelson Ong
Norman Rogers
Barry Smith
Sandra Stotsky
Richard Vedder
Bradley C.S. Watson
Amy L. Wax
Keith Whitaker
R. H. Winnick
Current Board of Advisors
John Agresto
Walter Berns
Edwin J. Delattre
Chester E. Finn, Jr.
Robert P. George
Gertrude Himmelfarb
Paul Hollander
Harry V. Jaffa
Donald Kagan
Richard D. Lamm
Leslie Lenkowsky
Harvey C. Mansfield
Milton J. Rosenberg
Christina Hoff Sommers
Shelby Steele
Stephan Thernstrom
Edward O. Wilson
James Q. Wilson
Former Members of the Board of Advisors
Jacques Barzun
James David Barber
Eugene D. Genovese
Irving Louis Horowitz
Robert Jastrow
Jeane J. Kirkpatrick
Irving Kristol
Seymour Martin Lipset
Sir Hugh Lloyd-Jones
Nelson W. Polsby
Willard V. Quine
Leo Raditsa
Stanley Rothman
John R. Silber
Ernest van den Haag
