The President's Council Members

Joel Alper (CE ’58)
Retired CEO and President
Comtech Mobile Datacom Corp.

Corice Canton Arman
Educator and Collector

Lawrence S. Bacow
President Emeritus, Tufts University
Former Chancellor, MIT

Robert Berne
Former Real Estate Developer

Kevin Burke (EE ’72)
Chairman, President and CEO
Consolidated Edison, Incorporated

Albert Carnesale (Former Trustee, ME ’57)
Chancellor Emeritus and Professor
University of California, Los Angeles

Vin Cipolla
President
The Municipal Art Society of New York

Tracy Day
Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer
World Science Festival

Susan Silver de Menil
Francois de Menil Architects, P.C.

Robbert Dijkgraaf
Director and Leon Levy Professor
Institute for Advanced Study

Elizabeth Diller (AR ’79)
Principal
Diller Scofidio and Renfro, LLC

Milton Glaser (Trustee Emeritus, A ’51)
President
Milton Glaser, Inc.

Harold Goldberg (EE ’44)
Design Engineer, Innovator, Entrepreneur and Educator

Bernard Gordon
Chairman
Photo Diagnostic Systems, Inc.

T.J. Gottesdiener
Partner
Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, LLP

Russell Hulse (PHY ’70)
Nobel Laureate, Physics
Regental Professor and Associate VP for Strategic Initiatives
The University of Texas at Dallas

Benedict A. Itri (EE ’75)
Entrepreneur

Maurice Kanbar
Inventor and Entrepreneur

Alex Katz (Trustee Emeritus, A ’49)

Stanley Lapidus (Former Trustee, EE ’70)
Life Sciences Inventor and Entrepreneur

Daniel Libeskind (A ’70)
Principal
Daniel Liebskind Studio

Lisa Phillips
Toby Devan Lewis Director
New Museum

E. John Rosenwald, Jr.
Vice Chairman Emeritus
JP Morgan Chase & Co.

Patricia Rosenwald
Philanthropist

Moshe Safdie
Founder and Principal
Safdie Architects

William Sandholm (Former Trustee, CE ’63)
Retired Real Estate Developer

Ricardo Scofidio (Faculty Emeritus, AR ’55)
Principal
Diller Scofidio and Renfro, LLC

Arthur Thomson (AR ’64)
Senior Vice President, Corporate Development
Henegan Construction

Willard Warren (EE ’50)
President
Willard Warren Associates

Philip Zev Weisberg (EE ’89)
Global Head of Foreign Exchange
Thomson Reuters

Irma Giustino Weiss (A ’45)
Philanthropist

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.