Ellis Rubinstein is an innovator and change agent. As the leader of the 200-year-old New York Academy of Sciences for 15 years, he established one of the world’s greatest networks to address many of the planet’s grand challenges. The Academy has partnered with the United Nations Secretary General and UN agency heads on sustainability; advised heads of state, ministers, and mayors on science, technology, and innovation policy; and established more than 1,000 partnerships with corporations, universities, and non-governmental organizations in areas ranging from Alzheimer’s disease and malnutrition to “smart cities,” early childhood development, and science and math education. Under Rubinstein, the Academy is also developing an unmatched network of the world’s most promising young scientists and engineers, and has created the Global STEM Alliance to identify, inspire, and empower a million or more high school students in science- and technology-related careers.

As editor of the world’s largest circulation scientific journal, Science, for a decade, Rubinstein globalized the publication, developing the world’s largest international science news network. A pioneer in internet-based publishing, he launched a daily news service, ScienceNow; a global website for graduate students and post-docs, Science’s Next Wave; and an unprecedented science-based social network, SAGE KE, or the Science of Aging Knowledge Environment. Individually, he conducted the first one-on-one interview granted to a Western magazine editor with China’s then-president Jiang Zemin; garnered President Bill Clinton’s first interview with a science magazine; and authored a much-cited investigative report on the controversial derivation of the cell line in which the AIDS virus was grown in the United States. Before coming to Science, Rubinstein was a science journalist and managing editor of IEEE Spectrum and Science 86, editor of The Scientist, and a senior editor at Newsweek. His work merited three National Magazine Awards.

A 1967 magna cum laude graduate in English literature of the University of California, Berkeley, where he also attended graduate school, Rubinstein taught high school English before becoming a journalist. He is a Fellow of the AAAS, a lifetime member of the IEEE, and a foreign member of Sweden’s Royal Academy of Engineering Sciences. He has been a member of the National Association of Science Writers since 1989. Rubinstein was a member of the World Economic Forum, moderating panels in Davos, Switzerland, and he also participates on the Council of Japan’s prestigious Science & Technology in Society (STS) Forum, among other external activities. He holds honorary degrees in communications from Hallym University in South Korea and in science from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.