Debora L. Spar

Debora L. Spar is a Baker Foundation Professor at Harvard Business School, where she teaches the first-year Strategy course. Spar previously served as the president and CEO of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and the president of Barnard College. During her tenure at Barnard, Spar led initiatives to highlight women’s leadership and advancement, including the creation of the Athena Center for Leadership Studies and the development of Barnard’s Global Symposium series.

A political scientist by training, Spar’s research has focused on international political economy and, more recently, issues of gender and technology, and the interplay between technological change and broader social structures. She tackles some of these issues in her forthcoming book The Virgin and the Plow: How Technology Shapes How We Live and Love. Spar earned her PhD in government from Harvard University and her BS from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Spar was elected a trustee of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in 2016.