Elizabeth Alexander Named to Yale’s First Endowed Professorship Dedicated Solely to Poetry

Elizabeth Alexander, who was selected to write a poem and read it at President Obama’s inauguration in 2009, was appointed the inaugural Frederick Iseman Professor of Poetry at Yale University. The Iseman chair is the first endowed professorship at Yale that is dedicated solely to the field of poetry.

Professor Alexander has been a member of the faculty at Yale since 2000. She previously taught at the University of Chicago. Professor Alexander is the author of six collections of poetry and an upcoming memoir entitled The Light of the World (Grand Central Publishing, April 2015).

Professor Alexander is a graduate of Yale University. She earned a master’s degree at Boston University and a Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania.