Adina Applebaum

Program Officer

Adina Applebaum is a Program Officer for the Whiting Awards and manages the Foundation's social media. Previously, she was the Development Manager at the Center for Fiction and a Program Associate at the Foundation. She is a graduate of Barnard College.

Constantia Constantinou

Executive Director

Constantia Constantinou is the Executive Director of the Whiting Foundation. She develops and implements the strategy and vision for the Foundation as a grant funding organization in support of Literature, the Humanities, and Cultural Heritage Preservation. She oversees and maintains multiple high-quality grant programs and administers all aspects of the Foundation's organizational management. Constantinou’s expertise spans various academic leadership roles in higher education. With a career marked by innovation and strategic vision, she has spearheaded digital, multimedia, and technology initiatives in various institutions, driving impactful strategies to enhance learning, engagement, fundraising, and community partnerships. Her dedication to literature, the humanities, and cultural preservation culminated in the establishment of many institutional partnerships nationally and internationally. Constantia is a talented classical musician, holding advanced degrees in music and Library Science from Queens College. She is a distinguished professor at the State University of New York; a Fulright Scholar and a Distinguished Alumna from the Graduate School of Library and Information Studies at Queens College.

Katy Einerson

Program Officer

Katy Einerson is a Program Officer for the Literary Magazine Prizes and Creative Nonfiction Grant. She previously served as the Director of Programming at Dixon Place. Katy has a BA in English from the University of Richmond and a Masters in Arts Administration from Baruch College, and serves on the board of the 61 Franklin Street Community Garden.

Courtney Hodell

Director of Literary Programs

Courtney Hodell oversees the Whiting Awards, Creative Nonfiction Grant, and Literary Magazine Prize. She has worked as a book editor for publishers including Viking Penguin, HarperCollins, and Random House, as publishing director at Fourth Estate in the UK, and most recently as an executive editor at Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Writers she has worked with include Michael Chabon, Edmund de Waal, Rachel Cusk, Abraham Verghese, Mary Karr, William Finnegan, Tina Brown, Annie Proulx, Arthur Miller, Amitav Ghosh, Carol Shields, the Nobel Prize winner Mo Yan, and Wells Tower. Courtney holds a BS from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.

Ruby Wang

Program Assistant

Ruby Wang supports the Foundation's programs and operations, with an emphasis on the Whiting Award, Literary Magazine Prize, and Creative Nonfiction Grant. Previously, she was the Associate Managing Editor at A Public Space. Ruby received her MA in English and American literature at New York University. Her work can be found in 128 LIT and Annulet: A Journal of Poetics. She lives in Brooklyn and is originally from Reno, NV.