The Committee on Global Thought
Global Thought is driven by the scholarship and activities of our faculty committee, chaired by Adam Tooze, Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of History. Our academic programs are led by teaching staff and fellows, and supported by our staff team. Our Advisory Council provides leadership and guidance for Global Thought's students and programs.
Dr. Vishakha N. Desai is Senior Advisor to Columbia Global and a Senior Fellow of the Committee on Global Thought at Columbia University. She previously served as Senior Advisor for Global Affairs to the President of Columbia (2013-2023) and as Chair of the Committee on Global Thought. From 2004 through 2012, Dr. Desai served as President and CEO of the Asia Society, where she expanded the organization's global footprint with new offices in India and Korea, a center for U.S.-China Relations, and the inauguration of architecturally distinguished
facilities in Hong Kong and Houston.
A scholar of Asian art and a prominent public intellectual, Dr. Desai is internationally recognized for her leadership in presenting contemporary Asian art to Western audiences. She has held tenured and senior academic positions at Columbia University, Boston University, and the University of Massachusetts. Her expertise focuses on the cultural roots of Asia's economic and political transformations, and her commentary has appeared in more than fifty global publications.
Dr. Desai is a Trustee of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Tallberg Foundation. She serves on the boards of Korea University and Teach For All, and recently concluded a twelve-year term on the board of Mahindra & Mahindra (2012-2024). Her extensive leadership history includes serving as Chair of AFS Intercultural Programs, Trustee of the Brookings Institution, and President of the Association of Art Museum Directors.Perry Mehrling is Professor of International Political Economy at the Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University, where he teaches courses on the economics of money and banking, the history of money and finance, and international money, the first of these is available online.
Perry G. Mehrling was a member of the faculty of Barnard College from 1987-2018, where he taught courses on the economics of money and banking, the history of money and finance, and the financial dimensions of the U.S. retirement, health, and education systems.
He is the author of The New Lombard Street: How the Fed became the Dealer of Last Resort (Princeton 2011), Fischer Black and the Revolutionary Idea of Finance (Wiley 2005, 2012), and The Money Interest and the Public Interest (Harvard 1997). Recent papers and video are available on his website, “one stop shopping for all things ‘money view’”.
He currently serves on the Academic Council of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, and has served as visiting professor at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, University of Nice, Paris X (Nanterre), and the Sloan School of Management, MIT.