Board of Trustees

Elaine is the founding editor-in-chief of culture, a quarterly national consumer magazine and website dedicated to covering the origins and producers of specialty cheese and dairy. She has been a staff editor and food writer for Country Living, Fine Cooking, Yankee, Self, Plate, Santé, and many other publications. Elaine is also the winner of a 2007 Gold Folio publishing award and has served as a James Beard Journalism Award judge. A former pastry chef who trained at the Culinary Institute of America and La Varenne in Paris, Elaine has an undergraduate degree in food and nutrition. In December 2016, her book, “Butter, A Rich History” was published by Algonquin Books. Living in Chatham, New York, she and her husband, Mitchell, are parent alumni of Hawthorne Valley School; their son, Alex, graduated with the class of 2005 and their daughter, Luca Pearl, graduated in 2012.

Thomas James became Provost, Dean of the College, and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Teachers College, Columbia University on July 1, 2007, and is also Professor of History and Education in TC’s Department of Arts and Humanities. Tom was formerly Dean of the School of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Previously, he was Vice Dean and Professor of Educational History at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Education, and prior to that, a tenured professor at Brown University. He received his bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and his master’s and Ph.D. degrees from Stanford University. A historian by training, he is the author of Exile Within: The Schooling of Japanese Americans 1942–45.

He also has written on law and the history of education, educational governance and control, and experiential education. As a child, Tom attended the Laboratory School at the University of Chicago, founded by John Dewey.

Mary is one of the country’s foremost authorities on sustainable food and local sourcing, and is the founder and owner of The Cleaver Co. and The Green Table.

In addition to Mary’s reputation for providing sumptuous, seasonally-driven food, attentive service and excellent event planning, she is well known for helping create a sustainable, humane and delicious food system. The Cleaver Co. and The Green Table are widely recognized for utilizing local farms and purveyors in order to obtain the best-quality product, and for supporting small to mid-size farms and family farmers.

In November 2011, Mary was named the first-ever “Snailblazer” by Slow Food NYC to honor her contributions creating a better, healthier food system for all. She is a founder of the Farm to Chef network and a board member of Food Systems Network NYC and Local Infrastructure for Local Agriculture, among other professional affiliations.

Before founding The Cleaver Co., she was a corporate chef at G.A.F. Corporation, the pastry chef at J.S. Vandam, a food stylist, and a cooking teacher at The New School. Mary co-authored The TriBeCa Cookbook, published by Ten Speed Press in 1995, and is a graduate of Bennington College. She lives in Brooklyn with her family.

Bob Fox is one of New York’s most respected architects and sustainability leaders, and is a foremost authority on green buildings. Bob’s distinguished career includes numerous honors for leadership and sustainable design, establishing him as an influential voice in the architectural profession, the business community, and in service to the public sector.

Having completed 4 Times Square, which set new standards for energy efficient high-rise buildings, Bob joined with Richard Cook in 2003 to form COOKFOX Architects and led the design of the LEED Platinum Bank of America Tower at One Bryant Park, a 2.2 million square-foot building. COOKFOX has received many honors, including AIA-NY Housing Design awards for Historic Front Street and The Hegeman, a supportive housing development.

Bob and Rick Cook joined Bill Browning and Chris Garvin in 2006 to form Terrapin Bright Green, a sustainability consultancy to address a broad spectrum of planning and policy projects. Terrapin has produced an ongoing series of publications addressing sustainability in the built environment, including 14 Patterns of Biophilic Design and Tapping into Nature.

In 2006, Bob was named as the only architect to serve on Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Advisory Council for the Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability. Bob is the founding chairman of Urban Green Council, and he has received the U.S. Green Building Council’s highest honor, the Leadership Award for service to the green building community.

Bob serves on the Advisory Board for the Center for Health and the Global Environment at the Harvard School of Public Health. He is a member of the prestigious “Green Dream Team” for Interface Corporation and is a member of the U.S. General Services Administration Green Building Advisory Committee. He has served as a Board member for De La Salle Academy since 1995.

Bob Fox is a graduate of Cornell University and Harvard University. He and his wife Gloria live in Manhattan and the Hudson River Valley.

Stephanie is a public health policy and advocacy expert with a passion for environmental sustainability, biodynamic farming, and social justice. She is keenly interested in local conservation efforts that promote regenerative agriculture, sustain small farms, and realize an equitable and accessible food system for all.

Stephanie’s work has focused primarily on global health and development issues. Most recently, she developed strategies and implemented programs to improve children’s health on behalf of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the US Agency for International Development, and UNICEF. Stephanie also has experience working to: eliminate gender-based violence in emergency, refugee, and conflict settings; improve maternal health; combat HIV and AIDS; and build the capacity of small, localized non-governmental organizations.

Stephanie’s commitment to public health was catalyzed by her experiences living in a rural desert oasis as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco. She has also lived and worked in Kenya, Burundi, and Thailand.

Stephanie was raised in New York City and received her B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her M.P.H. from Columbia University. She and her partner, Dave, are bringing up their two children in Brooklyn and in the Hudson River Valley. They spend their weekends and summers working to revive their formerly idle farm while appreciating the natural and agrarian landscape, fresh food, local arts, and warm community of Columbia County.

Christina leads Girl Rising – an organization dedicated to promoting the education of girls worldwide. Christina was the Supervising Producer for the 2013 documentary film Girl Rising and leveraged the film’s success to launch a global campaign for girls’ empowerment. Christina spearheaded Girl Rising’s unique partnership with USAID to launch grassroots campaigns and the Girl Rising film in India, Nigeria and The Democratic Republic of the Congo.

With a Master’s degree in community development and deep roots in storytelling through documentary film, Christina is passionate about compelling narrative as an engine of social change. She has produced and managed programs for The Documentary Group, ABC, CNN, A&E, Bill Moyers and The History Channel as well as feature films, and has researched and worked in Latin America, Africa and Europe.

She lives in New York’s Hudson River Valley with her husband and three children, all of whom attend Hawthorne Valley Waldorf School.

Irene Mantel has served as Director of Admissions at the Rudolf Steiner School (RSS) in NYC since 2001, and was School Administrator there from 1994-2001. She retired from the school at the end of the 2016 academic year. In her most recent position as Director of Admissions, Irene worked to increase enrollment and diversity at the school, while raising the qualifications of the student body. She instituted educational forums to explain the Waldorf pedagogical principles applied at RSS. Irene also served on a variety of admissions planning committees of New York City, raised scholarship funds for needy students, and started the School’s Diversity Committee. Prior to joining RSS, she worked for ARTFORUM magazine and was Director of Rudolf Steiner Institute. Irene has always remained connected to the arts scene. She received her BA in art history from UC Berkeley, attended graduate studies at University of Munich, and completed her Teacher Training at Rudolf Steiner College.

For the past eight years as Executive Director, Martin has balanced his time developing the synergies amongst the Association’s diverse enterprises and the 150 co-workers who carry those initiatives while cultivating collaborative relationships between Hawthorne Valley and other organizations in the Upper Hudson Valley/Berkshire region as well as like-minded initiatives nationally and globally. Read complete bio here.

Laurie is a pure food and clean water advocate/activist with a lifelong interest in landscape and ecology. Her undergraduate Fine Arts degree was in Theater, and she worked in theater management at City Center of Music and Drama, NYC and Brooklyn Academy of Music.

She has an MA in the Literature and Religion of the Bible, conferred jointly by Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary.  The topic of her master’s thesis was “A Biblical Ethic of Ecology.” She taught Biblical Studies at New York Theological Seminary for ten years. Laurie also has an MA from Columbia University in the Art and Archaeology of the Ancient Near East.

Laurie served on the Advisory Board of Grace Church School in Brooklyn Heights for ten years, three of those years as Board President. She also served as a Trustee of Saint Ann’s School in Brooklyn Heights for ten years. She currently serves as a trustee of several family foundations and is a member of the Council for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum.

She and her husband, Arthur, have four children and live in Brooklyn Heights and Bedford, New York. Laurie is an avid home cook and is particularly interested in fermentation. She makes a stellar kimchi, as well as krauts and yogurts and she maintains a biodynamic home garden.