Kathryn B. Yatrakis

Kathryn B. Yatrakis was named faculty advisor in the Office of the President after stepping down as the Dean of Academic Affairs at Columbia College and Senior Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs, in the Arts and Sciences having served for some 26 years. As Dean of Academic Affairs, she worked closely with Arts and Sciences faculty and was primarily responsible for overseeing the curriculum and academic life of Columbia College, especially the Core Curriculum. Prior to her administrative appointment, she was a member of the Barnard College Political Science faculty for almost a dozen years where she directed and regularly taught in the Columbia-Barnard Urban Studies Program.  Her areas of specialty include American politics, political theory, and urban politics.  She served as co-editor of a special edition of SIGNS on Women and the American City and also a publication assessing NYC after the fiscal crisis of the mid-1970s entitled Doing More With Less.  She is currently developing with a colleague a research project comparing Athens and Tel Aviv focusing on how competitive urban economies can be created and sustained  to strengthen the political environment and improve governance.

Yatrakis is currently a member of the Board of the Academy of Political Science and is the co-chair of the Board of Overseers of the Gennadius Library, and a Trustee of the American School of Classical Studies.  She is also on the Board of the Hellenic American Cultural Foundation as well as the Heritage Management Organization. She has served as a Trustee of the Packer Institute, a Director of the Prospect Park Alliance, and a member of the Board of the Cobble Hill Association.  She received an MA in political theory from New York University and a PhD from Columbia University.