Author, poet, educator and scientist, Annette Libeskind Berkovits was born in Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet Republic, near China’s western border. She is the daughter of Polish Jews who survived World War II in Soviet gulags. Daniel Libeskind, the noted international architect and master planner for rebuilding Ground Zero in New York, is Annette’s brother.

Annette received her primary education in Łódz, Poland and in Tel Aviv, Israel. On her arrival in New York as a teenager Annette entered the highly selective Bronx High School of Science not speaking a word of English, the only student to ever be admitted without taking the required entrance exam. She earned a BS in Biology from City College of the City University in New York in its heyday and, later, a master’s degree in Educational Administration and Supervision from Manhattan College.

In her three-decade career with the Wildlife Conservation Society, based at New York’s Bronx Zoo, Annette became one of the Society’s first female Senior Vice Presidents. During her tenure, she led the institution’s nationwide and worldwide science education programs and spearheaded partnerships among school systems and conservation organizations. Berkovits negotiated the first ever agreement to bring environmental education to China’s schools, long before China became an industrial power. Later her programs spread to Papua New Guinea, Bhutan, Cuba, India and elsewhere.

For several years, she served as the Chair of the International Association of Zoo Educators. Even before being elected to lead the international association, she convened the First Pan American Congress for Conservation Education in Venezuela attended by representatives from dozens of nations.

Recognized for her leadership in the field of science education by the National Science Foundation, Berkovits authored and edited numerous science education publications for children and teachers. She continues to pursue her life-long love of writing full time.

Her poetry has been published by the Review: a Literary Crossroads; Persimmon Tree; American Gothic: a New Chamber Opera; Blood & Thunder: Musings on the Art of Medicine; and in The Healing Muse. Her essay appeared in Curator: The Museum Journal.

Her first memoir, In the Unlikeliest of Places, a story of her remarkable father’s survival, was published by Wilfrid Laurier University Press in September 2014 and reissued in paperback in 2016. A Polish translation, titled Życie Pełne Barw was published in Poland by Biblioteka Centrum Dialogu in 2020.

Her second memoir, Confessions of an Accidental Zoo Curator, chronicling her career in entertaining stories, was published in April 2017. Berkovits also published a poetry collection, Erythra Thalassa: Brain Disrupted in 2020.

Her coming-of age memoir, Aftermath will also be published in 2022.
Berkovits and her husband divide their time between Manhattan and Florida.