Bio
Ester R. Fuchs is Professor of International and Public Affairs and Political Science and is the Director of the Urban and Social Policy Program at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. She served as Special Advisor to the Mayor for Governance and Strategic Planning under New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg from 2001 to 2005.
Previously, Professor Fuchs served as chair of the Urban Studies Program at Barnard College and Columbia College and founding director of the Columbia University Center for Urban Research and Policy. Professor Fuchs serves on the faculty of the Earth Institute, executive committee of Columbia’s Data Science Institute and its Smart Cities Center, the board of American University’s Metropolitan Policy Center, Senior Fellow of the Global Cities Institute at the University of Toronto, and an Associate at the University of Technology Sydney Institute for Sustainable Futures.
Fuchs is also a member of the Faculty Steering Committee of the Eric Holder Initiative for Civil and Political Rights and Provost’s Just Societies Task Force at Columbia. She received the Bella Abzug Leadership Award in 2017, the Above & Beyond Exceptional New York Women of 2017 Award for Education, the NASPAA Public Service Matters Spotlight Award for WhosOntheBallot.org, an Award for Outstanding Teaching at SIPA and the City of New York Excellence in Technology Award for Best IT Collaboration among Agencies for Access NYC. She also received the Distinguished Alumna Award from Queens College. Currently, Professor Fuchs serves as Director of the WhosOnTheBallot.org, an online voter engagement initiative for New York City. Whosontheballot.org is designed to improve voter turnout through a single online portal that provides easy access to customized sample ballots, polling place locations, and candidate information.
While at City Hall, Professor Fuchs coordinated three significant mayoral initiatives: the restructuring the City’s delivery of Out-of-School Time (OST) programs to children, youth, and families; the Integrated Human Services System Project (Access New York) to streamline the screening and eligibility determination processes, case management, and policy development and planning functions within and across the 13 human services agencies through the use of technology; and the merger of the Department of Employment with the Department of Small Business Services to align the City’s workforce development programs with the needs of the business community.
