BIO
Ellen Chesler served on the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women and is the author of Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America.
From 2007-2010, she was distinguished lecturer at Roosevelt House, the public policy institute of Hunter College of the City University of New York. For the decade prior, she served as a senior fellow and program director at the Open Society Institute, the international foundation started by George Soros, where she developed and executed the foundation’s multi-million dollar global investments in reproductive health and women’s rights and advised on a range of other program initiatives.
Currently, Ms. Chesler is writing a book on the history of women’s rights as fundamental human rights. An honors graduate of Vassar College, she earned her master’s and doctoral degrees in history at Columbia University.