Judith Friedlander, Professor of Anthropology, is a long-standing member of the Hunter College community. She served as Dean of Social Sciences in the early 1990s and Acting Dean of Arts and Sciences from 2002-2006. In the intervening years, she was Dean of the Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science and Eberstadt Professor at the New School for Social Research. During her 7-year tenure as dean at the New School, the Graduate Faculty strengthened its historical commitment to human rights and policy research by establishing two new policy centers—the International Center for Migration, Ethnicity and Citizenship and the Center for Economic Policy Analysis—and transforming the East and Central Europe Program into the Transregional Center for the Study of Democracy.

Professor Friedlander has written extensively on questions of ethnicity and cultural identity. She is best known for her books on indigenous Mexico, Being Indian in Hueyapan, and on Jewish intellectuals in France, Vilna on the Seine. Over the years, she has also contributed to debates about women and ethnicity in higher education. Currently she is writing a book on the history of the New School, where a remarkable group of European intellectuals found refuge during the 1930s and 1940s—the vast majority of them Jews from Germany and France. Social scientists for the most part, with the expertise in politics, social theory and economic policy, a significant number of these scholars subsequently served in the Roosevelt Administration, advising on issues ranging from the New Deal to National Socialism.

As Acting Academic Director of Roosevelt House, Professor Friedlander looks forward to developing opportunities for faculty and students to explore the policy implications of a wide range of disciplines in the Arts and Sciences and in the Schools of Education, Public Health, Nursing and Social Work. Her responsibilities include: overseeing the creation and implementation of individual policy centers and faculty seminars, the recruitment of research fellows and visiting faculty, and the planning of special academic conferences.