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Princeton University Press names new director

Christie Henry. Photo: Laura Coe.

Christie Henry, the editorial director for sciences, social sciences and reference at the University of Chicago Press, will become director of the Princeton University Press in September, school officials announced today. She will be the first woman to hold the top position at the Press.

Henry will succeed Peter Dougherty, who has been director of the Princeton University Press since 2005 and will retire as of the end of this year. A leading publisher of scholarly books since 1905, the Princeton University Press publishes about 230 titles a year in the humanities, sciences and social sciences. It is headquartered in Princeton with offices in Oxford, England. The Press is an independent publisher with close formal and informal connections to Princeton University. The board of trustees for the Press consists of seventeen members, eleven of which must have a Princeton University connection.

“Princeton University Press has been astonishingly fortunate in its directors, from its first, Whitney Darrow, to its most recent, Peter Dougherty,” said W. Drake McFeely, chairman of the Princeton University Press board of trustees and president and chairman of W.W. Norton & Co. “Christie Henry was selected from a formidably strong group of candidates and we have every expectation that she will continue the tradition of bold, creative and intelligent leadership from which the Press has benefited for more than a hundred years.”

Jill Dolan, Princeton’s dean of the college, said Henry’s editorial skills, sense of the industry and her commitment to team-building  make her the perfect choice to lead the Press into its next era.

“Christie will build on the Peter Dougherty’s legacy and inspire the Press staff and its authors toward innovation and new heights of excellence,” Dolan said. “I so look forward to seeing how Christie will shape the Press’ contribution to knowledge.”

Henry joined the University of Chicago Press as an editorial assistant in 1993 and rose through the ranks as an editorial associate, assistant editor, editor, senior editor and executive editor. In 2008 she was appointed to her current role as editorial director. She manages the acquisitions programs and staff for life science and science studies; economics, political science and law; and reference, which includes the print and digital versions of “The Chicago Manual of Style.” She also represents the Press at publishing and science meetings and conventions across the world, including the Frankfurt Book Fair, London Book Fair, Book Expo America, the Association of American University Presses and the National Association of Science Writers.

Previously, Henry was an editorial assistant at the Chicago Tribune. She is a graduate of Dartmouth College and has a certificate in leadership strategies for book publishing from the Yale Publishing Program.

“Princeton University Press has been an inspiration to me for the entirety of my publishing career and my life as a reader,” Henry said. “Bound into its imprint is a known excellence that sets standards in all niches of the publishing ecosystem, and which is owed to a staff and to authors of incredible creativity and talent.”