As stated by Barnard College President Sian Beilock,
We are delighted to announce that Umbreen Bhatti ’00 has joined Barnard as the Constance Hess Williams ’66 Director of the Athena Center for Leadership. Umbreen brings a fresh perspective and considerable expertise to the Athena Center, with a focus on helping our students develop the skills they need to address today’s opportunities and challenges in creative and original ways.
Umbreen Bhatti is responsible for establishing and implementing the strategic vision for the Athena Center. She oversees all programmatic initiatives including the following areas: women’s leadership, entrepreneurship and innovation, and civic engagement. She manages relationships with a broad network of supporters, including students, faculty, alumnae, consultants, business and non-profit partners, and staff, as well as serves as a thought leader in advancing a public dialogue on women and leadership.
Bhatti graduated cum laude from Barnard in 2000 as a political science major and Centennial Scholar and earned her J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School in 2005. Bhatti returns to the College with a wealth of experience in media, law, and non-profit management. Most recently, she served as Director of the innovation lab at KQED, the Bay Area’s NPR and PBS station. Bhatti also serves on the board of Global Press, a news organization dedicated to reinventing the craft and business of international journalism by recruiting diverse populations of local women and training them to become professional, ethical journalists. As a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University, she developed and then hosted the podcast “Kaleidoscope: Reflections on Islam.” Beyond media, Bhatti has worked with universities, libraries, local government, and nonprofits to support their efforts to meet the needs of their constituents in new and exciting ways. Earlier in her career, she practiced law at the Disability Rights Legal Center in Los Angeles, the ACLU in Wilmington, Del., and Latham & Watkins in Washington, D.C., and taught law students as an adjunct professor at the Widener University School of Law. Bhatti now lives in Manhattan with her husband, an executive in digital network news, and her two children.
