Dr. Ellen Frankel served for eighteen years as the Editor in Chief and CEO of The Jewish Publication Society. She received her B.A. from the University of Michigan and her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Princeton.

She is the author of ten books, among them The Classic Tales; The Encyclopedia of Jewish Symbols; The Five Books of Miriam, also available in Hebrew as Midrash Miryam; The Jewish Spirit: A Celebration in Stories and Art; and The Illustrated Hebrew Bible. She contributed to the ten-volume commentary series, My People's Prayerbook; to Three Testaments: Torah, Gospel, and Quran, edited by Brian Arthur Brown; and co-edited 2 volumes of Mitzvah Stories with Rabbi Goldie Milgram.

Dr. Frankel has also published three books for young people--Choosing To Be Chosen, a collection of stories for Jewish pre-teens, and a sequel, Tell It Like It Is: Tough Choices for Today's Teens. Her JPS Illustrated Children's Bible won the 2010 National Jewish Book Award.

In May 2022, Frankel will launch a new series, The Jerusalem Mysteries, featuring a female Israeli intelligence agent, Maya Rimon. The first book in the series, The Deadly Scrolls, begins with a murder and a race to locate an ancient scroll mapping the lost treasures of the Second Temple. The second volume, The Hyena Murders, due out in November 2022, features a serial killer targeting an Ethiopian member of the Knesset and his family.

Dr. Frankel travels widely as a storyteller, lecturer, and scholar-in-residence. She has taught literature and writing to undergraduates, gifted students, business professionals, and educators. She has received numerous awards and honors, including Hadassah's Myrtle Wreath Award and Brandeis University's Bernard Reisman Award for Professional Excellence.

She has also written librettos for three operas and numerous chamber pieces. Her next work, Beyond the Binary, about artificial intelligence, robots, and gender, with music composed by Andrea Clearfield, will premiere in Philadelphia in May 2022.