Kai Bird

Kai Bird is executive director of the Leon Levy Center for Biography at the CUNY Graduate Center and a Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer, historian, and journalist.

He co-authored with the late Martin J. Sherwin "American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer," which won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for biography, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Duff Cooper Prize for History. The acclaimed biography inspired Christopher Nolan’s "Oppenheimer," which won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

His latest book, "American Scoundrel: Roy Cohn’s Dark Journey From Joe McCarthy to Donald Trump," co-authored with Susan Goldmark, was published in September 2026.

His other books include "The Outlier: The Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter"; the New York Times bestseller "The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames"; and "Crossing Mandelbaum Gate: Coming of Age Between the Arabs and Israelis," a finalist for both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. He has also written biographies of John J. McCloy, McGeorge Bundy, and William Bundy.

Bird is an elected member of the Society of American Historians and received an honorary doctorate from Carleton College in 2016. He has led the Leon Levy Center for Biography since 2017.