Board of Visitors
Valerie Paley is senior vice president and the Sue Ann Weinberg Director of the Patricia D. Klingenstein Library at the New-York Historical Society. Formerly the chief historian at the institution, she was founding director of its Center for Women’s History, the first such center in the United States within the walls of a major museum. A graduate of Vassar College, Paley holds an MA in American Studies and a PhD in History from Columbia University, where she serves on the adjunct faculty at the Columbia Center for American Studies. Her work at New-York Historical encompasses a critical range of curatorial, scholarly, and administrative responsibilities, including the development of a new joint MA Program in Museum Studies with the CUNY School of Professional Studies, which launched in fall 2019. Paley is the 2020 recipient of the American Historical Association’s Herbert Feis Award, recognizing distinguished contributions to the field of public history.
Michael Stephen Hindus received his AB from Columbia, his MA and PhD in History from the University of California at Berkeley, and his JD (cum laude) from Harvard Law School. At Columbia College, he studied with legendary professors James P. Shenton, Walter Metzger, and David Rothman, and participated in the Double Discovery Center. The author of two books and numerous articles in American legal history, he taught at the University of Minnesota and Stanford Law School. As a lawyer, he specialized in renewable energy development as a partner in the international law firm, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman before retiring in 2018. Since 2017, he has taught a seminar on American Legal History for the Center for American Studies. A passionate classical music devotee, he is on the board of the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival.
Board of Visitors - American Studies Alumna, 2016
After a career in the financial markets as portfolio manager, research analyst, and investment banker focusing principally on the media and telecommunications industries, Les Levi began four years ago to build HC2 Broadcasting, today one of the largest media companies in the US, with more than 230 television stations nationwide. Mr. Levi serves as HC2 Broadcasting’s Managing Director and Head of Business Development. Previously he held senior positions at Plainfield Asset Management, JP Morgan Chase, Merrill Lynch and Drexel Burnham Lambert. Mr. Levi graduated with a BA magna cum laude from New York University, majoring in English. He received his PhD in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University and an MBA in Finance from the Stern School, New York University. He was previously an Adjunct Professor of Business at the Stern School, NYU, a position he held through 2016.
Jonathan Freedman recently retired as corporate partner in the international law firm Sidley Austin LLP, with a practice focusing on capital markets and mergers and acquisitions transactions in the insurance industry. He is currently a graduate student in American Studies at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Columbia University. He graduated from Columbia College magna cum laude in 1978 with a major in history, studying under Professor James Shenton, one of founders of the Double Discovery Program. Freedman received his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center in 1981. He also serves on the Steering Committee of the Board of Visitors of the Department of History at Columbia.
Alan Robert Ginsberg is an independent management consultant, the Executive Director of The Evidence Room Foundation, a nonprofit organization that owns and exhibits installation art in discourse with history, at museums and universities, the President of institutional investor consultancy called Larchmont Advisors Inc., and a member of the Board of Visitors at the Center for American Studies at Columbia University. He is a Board Observer to the Board of Directors of Guitar Center.
His book, The Salome Ensemble: Rose Pastor Stokes, Anzia Yezierska, Sonya Levien, and Jetta Goudal, published in April 2016 by Syracuse University Press, was the recipient of the 2017 Theatre Library Association Special Jury Prize for an exemplary work in the field of broadcast or recorded performance. As a freelance journalist he has written articles published in the Columbia Journalism Review, Los Angeles Magazine, and Musician Magazine.
Ginsberg earned an MA in American Studies from Columbia University in 2010, a JD from Boston University School of Law in 1980, and a BA in English and General Literature from SUNY-Binghamton in 1977. He was a research analyst and a research department manager at Barclays Capital from 1998-2000, and Salomon Smith Barney from 1993-1998, and a research analyst at Bear Stearns from 1990-1993 and Drexel Burnham Lambert from 1986-1990, focusing on junk bonds and other forms of debt. He was in-house counsel and program director at a non-governmental organization at the United Nations in New York City, promoting women’s rights in developing countries.
He lives in New York City.