Growing up, Linn Cary Mehta was inspired by her father’s passion for teaching and for creating equality in society. She wanted to contribute in a similar way, and has worked hard to demonstrate the connection between poetry and politics in the world and how art can be a transformative force in society. She is also dedicated to bringing North and South America together on equal terms; spending a year in Peru during college really broadened her worldview. Currently, Dr. Mehta is pursuing her goals at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University, where she has worked as an instructor since 2012, and at Barnard College, where she has worked as a lecturer in the English Department since 2000. In the past, she has served as a fellow of The Heyman Center of the Humanities at Columbia University, an instructor and adjunct assistant professor in the English Department at Vassar College, an instructor at Yale University, a preceptor at Columbia University, and an assistant program officer and assistant to the president of the Ford Foundation. She considers her greatest achievement to be completing a book on poetry and decolonization and teaching that material at New York University in a way that connects liberation in contemporary terms.
When Dr. Mehta isn’t working, she enjoys being active in her community. She has been a library associate at Yale University since 2011 and the board secretary of the Wrexham Foundation Inc., since 2010, as well as a member of the board of directors of the American Friends of the National Portrait Gallery in England, the Goddard Riverside Community Center, and The New York Society Library. Additionally, she is the vice president of the Center for Traditional Music and Dance in New York and the translator of “Three Beggars and a Rich Man.
Dr. Mehta started her professional journey by earning a Bachelor of Arts in English and French from Yale University in 1977 and a Master of Arts in English from the University of Oxford in 1979. To further her professional standing, she obtained a Master of Philosophy in comparative literature from Columbia University in 1989 and a PhD in comparative literature from Columbia University in 2004. She also joined prominent organizations like the American Comparative Literature Association and The Grolier Club of New York. Her achievements were highlighted in numerous editions of Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Education, Who’s Who in the East, Who’s Who in the World, and Who’s Who of American Women.
Looking to the future, Dr. Mehta intends to help develop a theater company in the South Bronx and to complete an anthology comparing North and South American literature.