David Brooks

Washington, DC

David Brooks is one of America’s leading writers and commentators on culture, politics, and the social sciences. Mr. Brooks has accepted a five-year appointment as a Presidential Senior Fellow at Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs beginning February 1, 2026. As part of the university’s new Presidential Senior Fellowship program, Brooks will convene campus conversations and develop public-facing programming, including a new weekly video podcast from The Atlantic, hosted by Brooks, and made possible by support from Yale. His work will focus on fostering respectful debate, engaging diverse perspectives, and connecting Yale’s scholarship to broader public conversations.

He served as an op-ed columnist for The New York Times since 2003, and has been a regular commentator on PBS NewsHour, NPR’s All Things Considered, and NBC’s Meet the Press. His recent writings consider the moral shortcomings of American culture, calling for connection, character, and community-building in an age of hyper-individualism and social fragmentation. In 2018, Mr. Brooks joined the Aspen Institute to found and lead Weave: The Social Fabric Project, which heals social divisions through grassroots and community development efforts.

A graduate of the University of Chicago, Mr. Brooks’ early media career included reporting and editing roles at The Washington Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, and Newsweek. He is the author of five books, including the bestselling The Road to Character and, most recently, The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life, and his articles have been published in The New Yorker, The Washington Post, Forbes, The New Republic, among others. He has served on the faculty of Yale University and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2010.