David Brooks: The moral ecology of American democracy

David Brooks began his media career as a police reporter for the City News Bureau in Chicago before joining the Washington Times in 1984. In 1986 he joined the Wall Street Journal and ultimately became the editor of the opinion page. He served as a senior editor at The Weekly Standard magazine from its inception in 1995. Brooks joined the New York Times as an op-ed columnist in September 2003 and is also a commentator on PBS NewsHour, NPR’s All Things Considered, and NBC’s Meet the Press. He is the author of several books, including Bobos in Paradise (2000), On Paradise Drive (2004), The Social Animal (2011), The Road to Character (2016), The Second Mountain (2019), and the forthcoming How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen (2023). Brooks teaches at Yale University and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He graduated from the University of Chicago in 1983 with a BA in history.

William J. Antholis has served as director and CEO of UVA's Miller Center of Public Affairs since January 2015. In that time, the Miller Center has strengthened its position as the leading nonpartisan research institution on the American presidency and worked with scholars across the University of Virginia to deliver vital research to policymakers and the public. Before coming to the Miller Center, Antholis served as managing director at the Brookings Institution from 2004 to 2014, working directly with Brookings's president and vice presidents. Antholis is the author of Inside Out India and China: Local Politics Go Global (2013) and co-author (with Strobe Talbott) of Fast Forward: Ethics and Politics in the Age of Global Warming (2010). He has published articles, book chapters, and opinion pieces on U.S. politics, U.S. foreign policy, international organizations, the G8, climate change, and trade.

Stephen M. Burns, chair of the Miller Center's Governing Council, is a managing partner at Quad-C Management, a middle-market private equity firm headquartered in Charlottesville, Virginia. Since joining Quad-C in 1994, Burns has invested in the building products, business services, specialty chemicals, packaging, transportation/logistics, and food sectors. Prior to joining Quad-C, Burns worked in the Risk Arbitrage Group and Leveraged Capital Group at Paribas and the corporate development group at W.R. Grace. He graduated from Boston College with a BS degree and earned his MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.