Cornell NYC Tech Hires Former NYC Council Member Jessica Lappin's Chief Of Staff Jane Swanson As Liaison To Roosevelt Island Community

Last December 2, leaders of Roosevelt Island organizations gathered together to thank former NYC Council Member Jessica Lappin for her service to the community. Also thanked by Roosevelt Island Historical Society President Judy Berdy was Jane Swanson, Ms. Lappin's Chief of Staff.



Cornell NYC Tech announced today that Ms. Swanson will continue working with Roosevelt Islanders as the Cornell liaison to the community.

According to this Press Release from Cornell NYC Tech:

Cornell NYC Tech today announced that Jane Swanson, former Chief of Staff to Councilmember Jessica Lappin, has joined Cornell Tech as the Assistant Director of Government and Community Relations. Swanson has 17 years of experience working with the Roosevelt Island community, including at Councilmember Lappin’s office and previously handling constituent services for former City Council Speaker Gifford Miller. Swanson will work directly with Roosevelt Islanders and others in the City as Cornell Tech’s community liaison. She will spend time at Cornell Tech’s Chelsea Campus and on Roosevelt Island.

“Cornell Tech is pleased to welcome a familiar face back to Roosevelt Island,” said Cornell Tech’s Director of External Relations Meghan French. “Jane Swanson has a deep knowledge of Roosevelt Island and Cornell Tech’s campus plans, having worked with us every step of the way with Councilmember Lappin. She will be a tremendous asset to Cornell Tech and to the Roosevelt Island community as we embark on campus construction.”

“I have been working closely with the Roosevelt Island community for almost two decades, and I am thrilled to be spending more time on the island in my new role at Cornell Tech,” said Jane Swanson. “I look forward to working with Roosevelt Islanders and the City to ensure that the tech campus is a great neighbor to the community.”

Cornell will break ground early this year on a sustainable 12-acre Roosevelt Island campus. The first phase of the campus will open in 2017, including the first academic building, a corporate co-location building that will foster interactions and collaboration between tech companies and Cornell Tech, an innovative sustainable residential building and public open space. The completed campus will include 2 million square feet of academic,residential and corporate research and development space, and will be home to more than 2,000 graduate students and nearly 280 faculty and staff.

Cornell Tech is up and running with world-class faculty and students who are working with industry and on their own start-ups. The first class of students graduated at the end of 2013. Cornell Tech has also launched its commitment to partnership with New York’s public school students, working with numerous organizations to bring tech education to a diverse audience.

In January 2014 the Jacobs Technion-Cornell InnovationInstitute at Cornell Tech launched a postdoc fellows program and is admitting students for its degree program in Connective Media. Students in this two-year program will receive degrees from both Technion and Cornell. Also in 2014, Cornell Tech will launch an MBA program in collaboration with Cornell’s Johnson School. The program will fuse business, technology, innovation and entrepreneurship in a fast-paced, hands-on learning environment.

Cornell University and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology won New York City’s Applied Science competition in 2011 to build a world-class campus as a way to capitalize on the growth in the science, technology and research fields in New York City and create a more diversified and competitive economy for the future.