About Ann Kirschner
Ann Kirschner is the daughter of Sala and Sidney Kirschner. Since July 4, 1994, the day that her mother gave her that Spill and Spell box filled with letters, she has been leading educational and creative initiatives based on her mother’s story. What started as a personal quest has turned into a global movement of students and teachers, writers and artists, the old and the young.
Sala’s letters turned Ann into a writer, maybe because for the first time, she had something important to say.
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Since the publication of Sala’s Gift, My Mother’s Holocaust Story in 2006, the book has been translated into German, Polish, Czech, Mandarin, Italian, and French.
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Ann went on to write a second book, Lady at the OK Corral: the True Story of Josephine Marcus Earp, which was published in 2010. She is at work on her third book.
Ann grew up in Jackson Heights, Queens before her family moved to Monsey, New York. She is married to Dr. Harold Weinberg and is the mother of Elisabeth, Caroline, and Peter Weinberg, and proud grandma of Dylan Alexander Stine. Ann graduated from University of Buffalo, University of Virginia, and received her PhD from Princeton University, where she was Whiting Fellow in the Humanities.
In her day job, Ann is president of Comma International and University Professor at The City University of New York, where she is a Faculty Fellow at the Futures Initiative at the CUNY Graduate Center. She teaches and writes about the impact of technology, demographics, and globalization on the future of work.
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You might call her career unusual or eclectic or unpredictable. She is a veteran of four start-ups in cable, satellite, and online. As the first digital strategist for the National Football League, she launched NFL.COM and SUPERBOWL.COM. A pioneer in e-learning, she founded FATHOM with Columbia University, London School of Economics, and other leading institutions. For ten years, she led Macaulay Honors College at CUNY and later served as Strategic Advisor to the CUNY Chancellor. She was founding director of the Women in Technology and Entrepreneurship (WiTNY) initiative at CUNY and Cornell Tech.
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She has served on a number of corporate and nonprofit boards that currently include Noodle Partners, Strategic Cyber Ventures, and Cricket Media. She is a trustee of Princeton University and also serves on the board of ASU EdPlus, the Paul and Daisy Soros Foundation, Footsteps, and nycFIRST. She co-chairs the Leadership Council of the Princeton University Graduate School and is on the advisory board of WorldQuant University and MOUSE.
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