Dr. Tamara Mann Tweel

Professor • Executive • Strategic Consultant

CURRENT EMPLOYMENT

The Teagle Foundation, New York, NY, 2019 - Present

I currently serve as the Senior Program Director for Civic Initiatives at a national foundation. In this role, I design and implement the Foundation’s strategy to strengthen the civic education of undergraduates.

SELECTED EXECUTIVE EXPERIENCE

Civic Spirit, New York, NY, 2017 – 2019

Co-Founder and Executive Director

Founded and ran Civic Spirit in 2017, an organization that educates, inspires, and empowers schools across faith traditions to enhance civic belonging and responsibility in their student, faculty, and parent communities. 

Hillel International’s Office of Innovation, New York, NY, 2015-2017

Director of Strategic Initiatives

Designed the program expansion model, fundraising strategy, and evaluation system for Hillel’s International’s first innovation center.

Center for American Studies, Columbia University, New York, NY, 2013-2015

Associate Director, The Freedom and Citizenship Program

Managed the academic course and yearlong civic engagement program for low-income New York City high school students at Columbia University. 

Avoda Arts, New York, NY, 2005-2006

Manager, The Jewish Lens

Coordinated innovative arts-based Jewish learning through teacher trainings, conference presentations, & curriculum 

The Interfaith Center of New York, New York, NY, 2003-2005

Manager, Arts and Culture Department

Organized all cultural programs held at the IFCNY, including the program series Sacred Waterways, Catholics of New York, and Women and Religion.

STRATEGIC CONSULTING & PHILANTHROPIC ADVISING

Civic Spirit, Strategy Consultant, New York, 2020-Present

ATRA, Strategy Consultant, New York, NY, 2023-Present

GiveWell, History of Philanthropy Project Consultant, 2013-2017

The Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies, Family History Consultant, 2010-2012

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

Columbia University, American Studies (2006–2020)

Professor, American History & American Studies

Seminar Instructor, Freedom and Citizenship (2014–2022)

Seminar Instructor, Give It Away: The History and Ethics of Philanthropy (2015–2020)

Seminar Instructor, Who Cares?: Old Age and the American Welfare State (2015-2020)

Senior Thesis Colloquium Instructor (2012–2015)

Advisor, American Studies majors (2006–2018)

Columbus College of Art & Design, MFA Program (2012–2015)

Professor, Intellectual History

Designed and taught a semester-long course on aesthetic theory.

The Jewish Museum of Art (2004–2005)

Educator for K–12 students.

Brooklyn Museum of Art (2003–2004)

Educator for high school and college groups

Led tours on the work of Frederic Brenner and the South Asian collection.

SELECTED FELLOWSHIPS & AWARDS

• Fellow, the Kogod Research Center at Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, New York, NY, 2018 - Present

• Intellectual Entrepreneurship Award, Anonymous Foundation, 2020

• Jack Miller Center Post-Doctoral Fellowship, Columbia University, 2014-2016

• Dissertation Fellow, Health, Disease, and Environment in World History at The Ohio State University, 2011-2013

• Quinn Fellowship, Dissertation Write-Up Grant, Quinn Foundation, 2012-2013

• Hugh Davis Graham Award, Institute of Political History, June 2012

• Visiting Scholar, Hastings Center for Bioethics, Summer 2012

• Summer Research Fellowship, American Studies, Columbia University, Summer 2012

• Congressional Research Award, Dirksen Congressional Center, 2011

• Beveridge Research Grant, American Historical Association, 2011

• Rockefeller Archive Center Grant, 2011

• K. Patricia Cross Future Leaders Award, The Association of American Colleges and Universities, 2009

• Richard Hofstadter Fellow at Columbia University, 2006-2011

• Teagle Scholar, Teagle Collegium for Psychological Science and Student Learning, Columbia University, 2008-2009 

• Fellow, Writers’ Seminar on The Jewish People, Columbia University, 2008-2009

STATE & FEDERAL TESTIMONY

• Testimony for The Committee on Higher Education, New York City Council, September 6th, 2023

• Community and Family Advancement Committee, The Ohio House of Representatives, March 10th, 2015

• Budget and Appropriations Committee, U.S. House of Representative, March 18th, 2015

• Health and Aging Committee, The Ohio House of Representatives, November 20th, 2014

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

• Arc Magazine: “A Peanut Farmer and Hasidic Rabbi Helped Build the Department of Education. Can Their Legacy Save It?” (May 20, 2025)

• Sapir: “The Sympathetic Method” (Winter 2025)

• Tablet Magazine: “Schools Should Not Be Factories” (Sept 4, 2023)

• Chalkbeat: “Loving an Imperfect Country” (July 2021)

• Times Higher Education: “Humanities from a Distance,” (February 2021)

• Hechinger Report: “Reclaiming the Role of the Humanities in our Democracy,” (January 2021)

• Tablet Magazine: “Song of Sirens,” (December 2020)

• Inside Higher Ed: “When Polling Fails, Read a Book,”( December 2020)

• Chalkbeat:  “Civic Education After Rupture,” (October 2020)

• Gleanings: Interdisciplinary Reflections on Ruth: “The Exquisite Challenge of Care,” Yeshiva University Press (2019) 

• Sh’ma: “Grateful Citizen,”( March 2019)

• HaYidion: “Teaching Civics in the Age of Polarization,” (March 2019)

• Inside Higher Ed: “Democratizing the Great Books,” (April 3, 2017); “An Intimate Education,” (January 9, 2015)

• HistPhil: “When Philanthropy Engaged the Elderly,” (Spring 2016)

• The Jewish Week: “Igniting Community Through the Home,” (March 31, 2016); “A Call For Multigenerational Education,” (January 7, 2016); “A Professor of Ethics Writes to Mark Zuckerberg” (December 11, 2015)

• The Open Philanthropy Project: $1 A Day: Lowering the Cost of AIDS Medication (2015); Ensuring the Safety of America’s Drug Supply Chain (2014)

• Inside Higher Ed: The Jewish Journal: “Religion as Romance,” (Winter, 2015)

• Rethinking Age and Citizenship: “From Personal Care to Medical Care,” (Spring, 2014)

• Journal of World History Spring: “Old Cells, Aging Bodies, and New Money: Scientific Solutions to the Problem of Old Age in the United States, 1945-1955,” (2014)

• Harvard Divinity Bulletin: “What is Health?” (Winter/Spring 2014); “Dying Well,” Harvard Divinity Bulletin, (Winter/Spring 2013)

• ORIGINS: Current Events in Historical Perspective: “Should Age Matter? How 65 came to be old and old came to be ill,” (February 2013)

• Huffington Post: “Heartbeat: My involuntary miscarriage and ‘voluntary’ abortion,” (November 2012)

• Journal of Intellectual History and Political Thought: “The Iraqi Jewish Archive,” (October 2012)

• Edible Columbus: “The Sikh Gurdwara,” (Winter 2012); “Caipirinhas and Churrasco: A Brazilian Barbecue,” (Summer, 2012); “With a Stick and a String,” (Spring 2012); “Injera,” (Winter 2012); Collage Cooking,” (Fall 2011);  “A Fertile Friendship: The Bantu Somalis and Franklin County,” (Summer 2011);  “Cambodian Columbus,” (Spring 2011); “Interview with Matt Habash of Mid-Ohio Food Bank,” (Winter 2010)

• Spencer’s Art Law Journal: “When the Bird became Art and Art became Anything,” (November 2011)

• The Washington Post: “No Joke,” (April 1, 2009)

• The Jew and the Carrot: “Butter Beats Lard,” (Summer 2008)

• My Jewish Learning: “Abraham Heschel: Every Moment Is an Opportunity for Greatness” (2012); “Julius Rosenwald, One Man’s Philanthropic Legacy,” (2010); “Gefilte Fish in America,” (2009)

• Museum: “Between Home and the Battlefield,” (Fall 2008); “Money Makes Sense at The Museum of American Finance,” (Summer 2008); “Curating Cafes,” Museum, (Fall 2007); “Don’t let anyone throw away your comic books,” (Fall 2006)

SELECTED PRESENTATIONS & INTERVIEWS

• Mutual Obligation, Civic Spirit Summer Teaching Institute, (August 6th, 2025)

• Uncomfortable Gratitude: Deliverance from a Flawed Source,” Texting Podcast (July 18th, 2025)

• We the People, Civic Spirit Interview Professor Jonathan Sarna,” (February 20th, 2025)

• The Public Value of Private Faith, The Shalom Hartman Institute,” (November 12th, 2024)

• Retreat and Reentry, The Shalom Hartman Institute, (September 2024)

• Our Civic Selves & Wallace Stegner, Civic Spirit Summer Teaching Institute, (August 6th, 2024)

• Gilead by Marilynne Robinson - Tikvah Summer Institute, (July 29th - August 1st, 2024)

• A Patriotism of Youth and Forgiveness, The Bronfman Fellowship (July 4th, 2024)

• Educating for Love of Country, The Shalom Hartman Institute, (March 13th, 2024)

• Patriotism and Critique, The Shalom Hartman Institute, (March 1, 2023)

• Presentation at the National Summit on Civic Education, the Jack Miller Center, (November 10th, 2023)

• Education that Binds Us Together, Founder’s Day Lecture, St. Joseph’s College, (October 30th, 2023)

• Presentation at the Hope in Higher Education Conference, Villanova University, (July 27th, 2023)

• The Teagle Foundation: Cultivating Civic Leaders Through Education Excellence, Interviewed by Clarice Smith, Philanthropy Roundtable, (May 4, 2023)

• Interview with Richard Haass, Civic Spirit (March 2, 2023)

• Guest Lecturer in Life at the End of Life, Columbia University, (April 7th, 2022)

• Prayer in Public: Muslim, Jewish and Civic Leaders Respond, The Shalom Hartman Institute, (December 13th, 2022)

• How to talk to kids about the election and fraught politics, CNN, (October 2020)

• Civics Education Today Webinar for The Paul E. Singer Foundation, (July 2020)

• Freedom without Freedom, The Tikvah Foundation, (July 2020)

• American Democracy, Shalom Hartman, (July 2020)

• I’m Curious Why You Feel That Way, Episode 17&18, Radical Moderation Podcast, (November 2019)

• American Democracy and the Responsibility of Jewish Citizenship, The Shalhevet Institute, Los Angeles, CA, (November 2019)

• My House or Your House,”The Shalom Hartman Institute,” New York, NY, (October 2018)

• Conceived in Liberty, Keynote Address, Jewish Futures Conference, New York, NY (December, 2017)

• Learning to Care, talk at the Jewish Home for the Aged, New York, NY (March, 2017)

• The Briefcase: Dr. Tamara Tweel on Involuntary Miscarriages and Voluntary Abortions, Interview on Pantsuit Politics, (February 2017)

• A Heartbeat and a Broken Heart, Interview in Lenny Letter, (December 2016)

• Freedom and Citizenship, Democracy and Education Conference, Columbia University, New York, NY, (December 2016)

• Educating Citizens Through The Great Books, talk at The Association of American Colleges and Universities, Washington, D.C. (January 2016)

• Beyond the Classroom: Liberal Education and Civic Engagement, talk at Ursinus College, Collegeville, PA (October 2014)

SELECTED MEMBERSHIP & SERVICE

• Board of Trustees, The Moynihan Center at The City College of New York, 2025 - Present

• Board of Trustees, The Jack Miller Center, 2025 - Present

• Board of Trustees, (PACE) Philanthropy for Civic Engagement, 2024 - Present

• Advisory Council, The Princeton University Office of Religious Life, Princeton University, 2019-present

• Board of Trustees, Luria Academy of Brooklyn, 2017-2024

• Board Member, Prospect Heights Shul, 2016-2018

• Nadav Spiritual Volunteer, Wexner Heritage Village Hospice and Palliative Care, 2010-2012

• Participant, Tufts Summer Institute of Civic Studies and the Public Conference, 2011

• Participant, Henry Luce Summer Institute on Jewish Ceremonial Art, New York, NY, June 1-18, 2004 

• Member, Religion and Conflict Group at the Program for Negotiation at Harvard Law School, 2003

EDUCATION

Columbia University, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, New York, NY, 2006 - 2013

Ph.D. October 2013

Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA, 2002-2005

M.T.S. in World Religions, May 2005

Duke University, Durham, NC, 1997-2001

B.A. magna cum laude, Program II: Political Science and Art History, May 2001