Steven Solnick is the Davis Center’s executive director. He has spent over three decades in the higher education, independent school, and philanthropic sectors. Throughout his career, his roots as a teacher and scholar have grounded and informed his service to a wide range of organizations and communities.
Before joining the Davis Center as executive director in 2025, Steve led the Education Practice for DSG | Storbeck, a global executive search firm. Prior to joining DSG | Storbeck, Steve served for seven years as head of The Calhoun School in Manhattan, one of New York's leading progressive schools. Before Calhoun, Steve served as president of Warren Wilson College in Asheville, NC — the only national liberal arts college that fully integrates work and community engagement into its curriculum.
From 2002 to 2012, Steve was the Ford Foundation's country director in Moscow and then New Delhi, managing regional operations and overseeing all grant making in areas as diverse as human rights, education, poverty alleviation, public health, and the arts. In that role, Steve supported and partnered with hundreds of nongovernmental organizations and international agencies working throughout Russia and South Asia.
Prior to joining the foundation, he taught Russian and comparative politics as associate professor of political science at Columbia University. He is the author of Stealing the State: Control and Collapse in Soviet Institutions and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Steve earned a Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University. He also has a B.A. in politics and economics from Worcester College, Oxford University, and an S.B. in physics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
