Team
Directors
Karen Christensen Great Barrington, MA
Karen Christensen is CEO of Berkshire Publishing Group, an independent scholar, and a popular author. Karen’s greatest accomplishment as a publisher has been to bring together global teams (sometime including hundreds of overworked experts who are continually on the move) to create important publications. She is known for building productive relationships with experts and organizations around the world.
Karen grew up in Minnesota and in the Silicon Valley in California. After graduating from the College of Creative Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, she emigrated to London and worked first as a nanny and chauffeur before starting her publishing career at Blackwell Scientific Publications and Faber & Faber.
Karen is coeditor of Global Perspectives on the United States and Exploring Global Perspectives (Berkshire) and senior editor of the award-winning Encyclopedia of Community: From the village to the virtual world (Sage). She is also an environmental author, with her most recent popular book The Armchair Environmentalist. She keeps her Spanish moderately fluent with the help of a Mexican friend, and is learning Chinese.
Jonathan Greene Great Barrington, MA
After graduating in 1980 with an A.B. in mathematics from Harvard College, Jon quickly specialized in high performance embedded computing, becoming one of the industry’s premier algorithm developers across a wide variety of signal and image processing applications. Jon recently was awarded a patent for a novel implementation of a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), the most commonly used Digital Signal Processing (DSP) algorithm of all time.
Jon has also developed expertise in the area of parallel computing, inventing a popular “middleware” library for use in tightly coupled processor networks, for which he received a patent in 2001. Last year, Jon received an “Innovator of the year” award from Mercury Computer Systems, Inc. where he has worked for the past 17 years.
Jon previously served as a Board member of Gould Farm, a psychiatric facility located in the Berkshires, and presently continues his affiliation with Gould Farm as an Associate. Jon also is active in Habitat for Humanity along with Construct, Inc., volunteering on local housing projects as well as periodically traveling to Central America to help build affordable housing. Jon is married and has three [near] adult children. He enjoys woodworking, hiking and dancing.
Nancy Kranich
Nancy Kranich is Past President of the American Library Association (ALA) for the 2001-2002 year. As ALA President, Nancy articulated the key role of libraries as the cornerstone of democracy, undertaking projects related to information literacy partnerships, social capital building, civic forums, information equity, and bridging the digital divide. A tireless advocate for the public’s information rights, Nancy has spearheaded ALA's freedom of information initiatives, launched the Association's first advocacy training program, and established the James Madison Awards honoring champions of the public's right to know. Prior to serving as ALA president, she was Associate Dean of Libraries at New York University.
Nancy’s involvement in the movement for an “information commons” provides Berkshire with many ideas about its role as a publisher and with a vision for transformational leadership in 21st century publishing.
Jorge Schement
Jorge Schement is professor and co-director of the Institute for Information Policy in the College of Communications, and in the School of Information Science and Technology at Penn State University.
Jorge received a Ph.D. from the Institute for Communication Research at Stanford University and M.S. in Marketing from the School of Commerce at the University of Illinois. His book credits include Global Networks (1999) and Toward an Information Bill of Rights and Responsibilities (1995) and he was editor-in-chief of the Macmillan Encyclopedia of Communication and Information (2001).
His research interests focus on the social and policy consequences of the production and consumption of information. A Latino from South Texas, he maintains a special interest in policy as it relates to ethnic minorities, and is author of the telecommunications policy agenda for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Jorge has served on the editorial boards of seven academic journals, and has edited the Annual Review of Technology for the Aspen Institute where he annually leads seminars. In his free time, he enjoys reading histories of World War II.
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