Mitchel B. Wallerstein

About Mitchel B. Wallerstein

Dr. Mitchel Wallerstein is president emeritus of Baruch College of the City University of New York (CUNY), which he led for ten years (2010-2020). He's also a university professor at CUNY in which capacity he teaches graduate courses on international security and the policy implications of global climate change. Wallerstein was Dean of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs of Syracuse University from 2003-2010; the Maxwell School is the nation’s #1-ranked graduate school of public and international affairs.

Prior to leading the Maxwell School, from 1998-2003, Wallerstein was Vice President of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in Chicago, where he directed the foundation’s international grantmaking programs. From 1993-1998, he was a senior policymaker in the Clinton administration, serving as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Counterproliferation Policy and Senior Defense Representative for Trade Security Policy. During his five-year tenure at DoD, he dealt with nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons proliferation, as well as national security export controls; and he helped to found and subsequently co-chaired the Senior Defense Group on Proliferation at NATO. In January 1997, then Secretary of Defense William J. Perry awarded Dr. Wallerstein the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service, and he subsequently was presented with the Bronze Palm to that award in April 1998 by then Secretary of Defense William Cohen.

Wallerstein received his A.B. degree from Dartmouth College, and he earned M.S. and Ph.D. degrees at M.I.T.  He is a long-time member of the Council on Foreign Relations. In 2006, he was elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration; and in 2015, he was similarly elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.