ELLEN CHESLER

Ellen Chesler, Ph.D., is a senior fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, the longtime partner to the Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, which has recently established a presence in New York City as a progressive public policy and leadership development center. She is author of the critically celebrated "Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America," 1992, 2007; co-editor with Wendy Chavkin, M.D., of "Where Human Rights Begin: Health, Sexuality and Women in the New Millennium," 2005; and co-editor with Terry McGovern of "Women and Girls Rising: Progress and Resistance Around the World," 2015. She has written numerous essays and articles in academic and policy anthologies and for major newspapers, periodicals and blogs, and is at work on a new book about the history of women's rights as fundamental human rights. She worked for many years in philanthropy, most recently as a program director at the Open Society Foundation, and early in her career, in government, as chief of staff to New York City Council President Carol Bellamy. She is an honors graduate of Vassar College and holds a Ph.D. in American history from Columbia University.