Advisory Council

The mission of the advisory council for the Milstein Program in Technology & Humanity is to serve as the primary source of external advice and support for the deans of the College of Arts & Sciences and Cornell Tech, as well as the program’s faculty directors at both A&S and Cornell Tech, regarding the development and implementation of the program.

Chair: Michael Milstein (Cornell Class of 2011, A&S), Co-Chief Executive Officer and Co-President of Emigrant Bank and Milstein Properties. Michael plays a key leadership role across the Milstein family’s broader portfolio of businesses, including its venture capital, private equity, and private credit groups.  He founded Emigrant's fintech partnerships business, Emigrant Venture Partners, co-founded the financial wellness platform Fruitful, and serves as Executive Chairman of Boylan Bottling Co and Co-Chair of 8AM Golf. He is also co-founder and Executive Chairman of Company Ventures, an early-stage venture ecosystem supporting early-stage startups.

Michael led the redevelopment of 22 Vanderbilt, a 1.1 million-square-foot commercial tower connected to Grand Central Terminal. The project has been recognized for redefining the modern office experience through its unique approach to hospitality, attracting high-profile tenants such as Bain & Company, Armani, and TD Bank.

Michael graduated cum laude from Cornell’s College of Arts and Sciences in 2011, where he was a College Scholar in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics with a minor in Classical Studies. He worked with the College of Arts and Sciences and Cornell Tech to envision and help create the Milstein Program in Technology and Humanity, for which he serves as chair of the advisory council.

Oskar Eustis, Artistic Director of the Public Theater

Oskar has produced two Tony Award-winning Best Musicals (Fun Home and Hamilton), and back-to-back winners of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Hamilton and Sweat. He came to The Public from Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, RI where he served as Artistic Director from 1994 to 2005. Eustis served as Associate Artistic Director at Los Angeles’ Mark Taper Forum from 1989 to 1994, and prior to that he was with the Eureka Theatre Company in San Francisco, serving as Resident Director and Dramaturg from 1981 to 1986 and Artistic Director from 1986 to1989. Eustis is currently a Professor of Dramatic Writing and Arts and Public Policy at New York University, and has held professorships at UCLA, Middlebury College, and Brown University, where he founded and chaired the Trinity Rep/Brown University Consortium for professional theater training.

Ulfar Erlingsson (Cornell PhD 2004, CIS), Chief Architect, Lacework

Ulfar is the chief architect of a cloud security company called Lacework and former head of security research at Google Brain and Machine Learning Privacy Technologies at Apple.  Since the mid-1990's, his career has centered on research and advanced development of computer security and privacy technologies, most often with a systems-building and programming-language bent. This includes a decade in technical leadership at Google, as well as stints at Microsoft Research, Silicon Valley, and as an Associate Professor at Reykjavik University, Iceland. He has also led the computer security and privacy technology at two startups: GreenBorder Technologies and deCODE Genetics. He holds a PhD in computer science and a PhD minor in English literature from Cornell University.

Peggy Koenig (Class of 1978, CALS), Chair of Abry Partners, Cornell Trustee, and Cornell Tech Overseer

Ms. Koenig is the Chair of Abry Partners, LLC, a top ranked North American private equity investment firm focused solely on investing in the media, communications, information and business services industries and was a 2018 Fellow in Harvard’s Advanced Leadership Program. Prior to ABRY, Ms. Koenig was a vice president, partner and member of the Board of Directors of Sillerman Communications Management Corporation, a merchant bank. She participated in the formation and success of SFX Broadcasting, a publicly traded radio industry consolidator. Earlier in her career, she was involved in motion picture financing (Columbia and TriStar Pictures), investment banking (Thomson McKinnon Securities), and the magazine publishing industry (Savvy and American Photographer magazines). Currently, Ms. Koenig is developing a musical dramatizing stories about coming of age undocumented in the U.S. She is a member of the Board of Trustees of Cornell University and a member of the Board of Overseers of Cornell’s NY Tech Campus.

Josh Wolfe (Class of 1999, CALS/Dyson), Co-Founder of Lux Capital

Josh is a Director at CTRL-Labs (brain machine interface) Shapeways (3D printing), 3Scan (digital pathology), Aira (augmented reality for blind and visually-impaired), Variant (finding genetically rare individuals globally) and Kallyope (gut-brain axis). He helped lead the firm’s investments in Planet, Echodyne, Clarifai and Authorea (sold to Wiley). He is a founding investor and board member with Bill Gates in Kymeta, making cutting-edge antennas for high-speed global satellite and space communications. Josh is a Westinghouse semi-finalist and published scientist. Josh co- founded and funded Kurion, that uses advanced robotics and state-of-the-art engineering and chemistry to clean up nuclear waste. Josh is a Trustee if the Santa Fe Institute—dedicated to the study of complex systems. He has been a columnist with Forbes and invited to The White House and Capitol Hill to advise on nanotechnology and emerging technologies, and as a lecturer at MIT, Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Columbia and NYU. He has been a term member at The Council on Foreign Relations. He graduated from Cornell University with a B.S. in Economics and Finance. Josh lives in TriBeCa with his wife and three kids.