A Scholar of International Terrorism Will Be the First Woman President of the Carnegie Corporation of New York

The Carnegie Corporation of New York has announced that Louise Richardson will become the thirteenth president of the foundation in January 2023 at the end of her seven-year term as head of the University of Oxford in England. Dr. Richardson, an expert on international terrorism, has served as a member of the Corporation’s board of trustees since 2013. As its new president, she will oversee one of the leading philanthropic foundations in the United States, founded by Scottish immigrant and American industrialist Andrew Carnegie in 1911. She will be the first woman to lead the foundation.

“Ever since joining the Corporation’s board of trustees, I have been both impressed and moved by the strength of the board, the talent and dedication of the staff, and the extraordinary work of our remarkable grantees,” said Dr. Richardson. “We live in fragile times such that an unwavering commitment to the power of education to transform lives, to the need to strengthen democracy, and to the advancement of international peace has never been more important. I am looking forward to working with the board, the staff, and all of our many friends and supporters to ensure that we deploy our resources as effectively as possible to advance the mission laid out by Andrew Carnegie over a hundred years ago.”

Dr. Richardson was born and raised in Ireland and earned a degree in history from Trinity College Dublin. She first came to the United States on a scholarship from Rotary International. Dr. Richardson earned a master’s degree in political science from the University of California, Los Angeles and a master’s degree and Ph.D. in government from Harvard University.

Dr. Richardson spent 20 years on the faculty at Harvard University. There, she also served as the executive dean of Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Before being named the leader of Oxford University in 2016, she was the first woman to serve as principal and vice-chancellor of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

Professor Richardson is the co-editor of Democracy and Counterterrorism: Lessons from the Past (United States Institute of Peace, 2007) and the author of What Terrorists Want: Understanding the Enemy, Containing the Threat (Random House, 2006).