Louis Menand is the Lee Simpkins Family Professor or Arts and Sciences and the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of English at Harvard, where he also holds the title Harvard College Professor in recognition of his teaching. His books include The Metaphysical Club, which won the Pulitzer Prize for History, the Parkman Prize from the Association of American Historians, and the Heartland Prize from the Chicago Tribune.
He has been associate editor of The New Republic (1986–1987), an editor at The New Yorker (1993–1994), and contributing editor of The New York Review of Books (1994–2001). Since 2001, he has been a staff writer at The New Yorker, which he began writing for in 1991. He was awarded the 2015 National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama.