Peter Mellgard is the executive editor of the Berggruen Press, the Berggruen Institute’s in-house book-publishing project. In this role he oversees editorial strategy, distribution logistics, and, with Ross McLain, the creative direction for the books published by the Institute.

Peter previously co-founded Noema Magazine, also published by the Berggruen Institute, with Kathleen Miles and Nathan Gardels, and continues to serve as its deputy editor with a focus on special projects, multimedia stories, and major essays with long-time collaborators. Numerous pieces he edited won awards for writing and design and were selected for inclusion in Best American anthologies.

Over the years Peter has reported stories from inside lignite mines and artificial lakes in Germany, the edge of disappearing atolls in the Marshall Islands, the off-grid health clinics in the inland hills of Haiti and aboard a sailboat in the remote rainforest of Southeast Alaska. His work has been funded by grants from the International Journalists’ Program, the United Nations Foundation, the European Forest Institute and a Mongabay Special Reporting Initiative.

Before joining the Berggruen Institute Peter was an Arthur F. Burns Fellow on the foreign desk at Süddeutsche Zeitung, Germany’s largest newspaper, where he wrote environmental and politics stories for The Guardian, SZ-Magazin, and other publications. Before that, he was a staff writer at The American Interest and a researcher and editor for Walter Russell Mead. He has also worked at the Council on Foreign Relations. Peter studied history and Middle Eastern politics at Colgate University and now lives in Maine.