Mitchel Wallerstein G’72 became the eighth dean of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs in July 2003. Wallerstein replaced John L. Palmer, who had served in the post since 1988. Before joining Maxwell, Wallerstein served for five years as vice president of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, one of the world’s 10 largest philanthropic organizations, with assets of nearly $4 billion. He directed the foundation’s international grant-making division, known as the Program on Global Security and Sustainability (GSS), which makes grants in conservation and sustainable development, international peace and security, population and reproductive health, human rights and issues related to globalization. Annually, GSS makes grants worth approximately $72 million in 80-plus countries.

From 1993 until 1997, Wallerstein was deputy assistant secretary of defense for counterproliferation policy, the first presidential appointee in this position, and senior representatative for trade security policy. In the former capacity, he developed and implemented policies and programs to block the proliferation of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and their means of delivery and worked to assure that the U.S. military would be better prepared to deal with such threats in the future. In the latter capacity, he was responsible for defense policy regarding the problem of protecting sensitive technology; he participated in a number of international negotiations on the design of national security export controls in the post-Cold War era. During his tenure in the Department of Defense, Wallerstein helped found and co-chaired the Senior Defense Group on Proliferation at NATO. In January 1997, he was awarded the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service, and he received the Bronze Palm to that award in April 1998.

Prior to his service in the U.S. government, Wallerstein was the deputy executive officer of the National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering, which is a private, non-profit organization in Washington that undertakes policy studies for and provides advice to the executive branch and Congress. While at the NRC, he also directed a series of highly acclaimed studies for the U.S. government on various other national security issues.

Wallerstein’s previous full-time academic career includes five years on the faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as well as an earlier tenure-track appointment in the political science department at Holy Cross College. From 1985-1989 he was an adjunct professor in the graduate program in science, technology and public policy at George Washington University; from 1987-1993 he served in a similar capacity at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University; and from 1992-1997 he was an adjunct professor at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at the Johns Hopkins University. Immediately prior to joining the MacArthur Foundation in 1998, Wallerstein held an appointment as Distinguished Research Professor at the National Defense University in Washington. He is the author of numerous books, articles, monographs and other publications. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Wallerstein is the first Maxwell alumnus ever named dean, having received a master’s degree in public administration (1972). He also holds a Ph.D. (1978) and M.S. (1977) in political science from M.I.T.; his A.B. (1971) is from Dartmouth College. He is married with two college-age children, and his wife, Susan Perlik G’72, received her master’s degree in special education from Syracuse.

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