Ellis Rubinstein is an innovator and change agent. As a science journalist, his work merited 3 National Magazine Awards, the Pulitzer Prizes of the American periodicals industry. As a Senior Editor at Newsweek and as Managing Editor and Editor-in-Chief of several leading scientific and engineering publications, Rubinstein increased impact and circulation through landmark articles and special issues. As Editor-in-Chief of the renowned journal Science, he internationalized news coverage and pioneered in Web publishing. Now, as leader of a unique global academy of sciences, he has created a series of unprecedented initiatives that are powered by an extraordinary network of the world’s leading experts and academic and industry organizations.

Since joining the 194-year-old New York Academy of Sciences in November 2002, Mr. Rubinstein has increased membership to 25,000 scientists in 140 countries. The President’s Council that he created has 27 Nobel Laureates and a score of CEOs and government leaders from across the globe. The Academy’s Board includes 3 Nobel Laureates, several philanthropists, the Presidents of 6 universities and academic medical centers, and the heads of research of IBM, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and PepsiCo.

Members of the Academy’s Board, Council and partner universities and companies are engaged in ground-breaking public/private partnerships in smart cities, under- and over nutrition, and neurodegenerative diseases. In addition, the Academy has forged partnerships with government leaders and their agencies—notably, the Prime Minister of Malaysia, the leader of the President’s Commission on Economic Modernization of Russia, the Mayor of Mexico City, and the Global Medical Excellence Council of the UK—to drive innovation and economic development through science and technology. And novel New York-based pilot programs in STEM education involving thousands of children and science teachers, as well as career mentoring initiatives serving thousands of post-graduate students, are being adapted for use in other locations around the United States and across the globe.

A 1967 magna cum laude graduate in English literature of the University of California, Berkeley, where he also attended graduate school, Mr. Rubinstein taught high school English before becoming a journalist. He is a Fellow of the AAAS and a member of the IEEE and the National Association of Science Writers. For 6 years, Mr. Rubinstein was a member of the World Economic Forum, moderating panels in Davos, Switzerland. Today, he participates on the Council of Japan’s prestigious Science & Technology in Society (STS) Forum and is a member of the International Advisory Board of the European University of Saint Petersburg. He has honorary degrees in communications from Hallym University in South Korea and in science from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

Leadership