Before becoming president of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation on September 1, 1999, Jonathan F. Fanton served as president of the New School for Social Research in New York City for 17 years. He holds a PhD from Yale University, where he taught American history. Fanton is a board member of Human Rights Watch and has served as chair of the New York Committee on Independent Colleges and Universities, as co-chair of the 14th Street/Union Square Local Development Corporation, and was a member of the Board of the Partnership for Public Service. He is also an advising trustee of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, a Board member of the Chicago Historical Society, and the founding Board Chair of Security Council Reports. Fanton was a trustee of the American Academy in Berlin until the end of 2003. He is the author of The University and Civil Society and co-editor of John Brown: Great Lives Observed and The Manhattan Project: A Documentary Introduction to the Atomic Age.