Elizabeth Alexander

A celebrated poet, scholar, and cultural advocate, Elizabeth Alexander is a nationally recognized thought leader on race, justice, the arts, and American society. As president of the Mellon Foundation, she leads a multi-billion-dollar philanthropy and the nation’s largest funder of the arts and humanities, supporting educational institutions and cultural organizations while envisioning and guiding new initiatives to build just communities across the United States.

Prior to joining the Foundation, Dr. Alexander served as the director of Creativity and Free Expression at the Ford Foundation, shaping Ford’s grantmaking vision in arts and culture, journalism, and documentary film. In this role, she guided the organization in examining how the arts and visual storytelling can empower communities and serve as vital tools for collective expression and enlightenment. While at Ford, she co-designed the Art for Justice Fund, an initiative that uses art and advocacy to address the crisis of mass incarceration.

Across her esteemed career as a scholar and educator, beginning with an English professorship at University of Chicago, where she was honored with the Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, Dr. Alexander has taught and inspired generations of students. She held distinguished professorships at Smith College, Yale University—where she taught for over 15 years and helped rebuild and chaired the African American Studies Department—and Columbia University. In 1997, Dr. Alexander was appointed inaugural director of The Boutelle-Day Poetry Center at Smith College and in 2015, she was appointed Yale University’s inaugural Frederick Iseman Professor of Poetry.

An author or co-author of fifteen books, Dr. Alexander was twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize: for poetry with American Sublime and for biography with her 2015 memoir, the New York Times best-seller The Light of the World. In 2009, she composed and delivered the poem “Praise Song for the Day” for President Barack Obama's inauguration. Her latest book, released in 2022, is The Trayvon Generation.

Dr. Alexander is a widely sought after speaker and has contributed to countless selection committees and juries. Currently, she serves on the boards of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, New York-Presbyterian Hospital, the Pulitzer Prize, and is Chancellor Emeritus of the Academy of American Poets. She has been awarded ten honorary doctorates and is internationally recognized for her poetry, scholarship, and thought leadership. Time named Dr. Alexander one of the 100 Most Influential People of 2022, and in 2019 she was awarded Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Medal. In 2021, Dr. Alexander was recognized as Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture, one of the country’s highest cultural honors.

Dr. Alexander holds a BA from Yale University, an MA from Boston University, and a PhD in English from the University of Pennsylvania. She lives and works in New York City.