Fredrik Palm is Chief Operating Officer of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), where he leads the organization’s administrative and program operations. As a member of the executive leadership team, he helps shape the Council’s strategic direction and ensures its operations align with its mission to mobilize necessary knowledge for the public good by supporting scholars worldwide, generating new research across disciplines, and linking researchers with policymakers and citizens.

Dr. Palm has over two decades of experience in higher education and nonprofit administration. Before joining SSRC, he held senior leadership roles at Columbia University, including Chief Administrative and Academic Affairs Officer for the Faculty of Arts & Sciences and Senior Associate Dean at the School of Engineering and Applied Science, and New York University, where he served the Faculty Resource Network a consortium of academic institutions focused on scholarly renewal.  He has also held academic appointments at Columbia University and is currently affiliated faculty at the University of Notre Dame.

He holds an EdD from Fordham University, an MA from NYU, and an MS from Columbia. His professional and research interests focus on organizational effectiveness, with an emphasis on faculty development and equitable career advancement.

Nicole Restrick Levit is the director of program support and learning at the SSRC. Levit works closely on the development of new programs and has been instrumental in the startup of SSRC programs such as the Drugs, Security and Democracy Program; the Social Data Initiative; and the Sloan Scholars Mentoring Network. Prior to joining the Council in 2006, Levit was an international programs officer at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan. She has also worked as an editor and designer of K–12 curricula on Japan and East Asia. She holds an MA in East Asian studies from Cornell University. In addition to the SSRC-JF Next Generation Japan Studies Development Program, Levit is also responsible for Abe Fellows Network programming.

Linda Grove received a BS in journalism from Northwestern University and an MA and PhD in Chinese history from the University of California, Berkeley. She taught at Sophia University in Tokyo and served as both a dean and vice president, responsible for international programs and research management. She has published books and articles on Chinese rural industrialization and social change, East Asian trade history, and Chinese women's history and has translated and edited Japanese studies on Chinese history. Grove has been a member of the boards of several Japanese academic associations; serves on the editorial boards of Modern China, International Journal of Asian Studies, Textile History, and Gender History (in Japanese); and was a member of the local organizing committee for the 2015 World Economic History Congress in Kyoto. She is currently working on a book based on extensive fieldwork in rural China that traces the histories of five villages over the twentieth century.