Illustrious Strangers at 250: Inspectors General & the American Democratic Tradition

Inspector General Lucy Lang oversees investigations into corruption, fraud, and abuse in New York State government. Lang previously served as Director of the Institute for Innovation in Prosecution at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office prosecuting violent crimes including homicides. There, she also served as Special Counsel for Policy and Projects and created a first-of-its-kind college class for incarcerated students and prosecutors to develop policy together. Lang’s writing on the legal system has been published in The New York Times, The Atlantic, the New York Daily News, and others, and she is the author of “March On!,” a children's book about the 1915 Women's March for Suffrage in New York City. Lang is a Presidential Leadership Scholar and a member of the Council on Criminal Justice, the American Bar Association Criminal Justice Section, and the New York State and New York City Bar Associations. She is a graduate of Swarthmore College, Columbia Law School, and the Executive Public Leaders Programme at the University of Oxford. Lang was recently recognized on City and State’s Law Power 100 list and received the 2025 Robert S. Tucker Prize for Prosecutorial Excellence for her unwavering commitment to community safety and to support for vulnerable New Yorkers.

Mark Lee Greenblatt is an expert on government ethics and compliance, an attorney, and author. Most recently, he served as Inspector General for the U.S. Department of the Interior. His work bolstered the integrity of the agency’s programs, rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse in the Department’s $10 billion in grants and contracts and $12 billion in natural resource royalties. Mr. Greenblatt was elected by the 74 Inspectors General to serve as the Chairman of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency in 2022. He previously served in leadership roles at the U.S. Department of Commerce Office of Inspector General and the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Mr. Greenblatt also served as an investigative counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice. He clerked for U.S. District Judge Anita Brody and was a litigator in two international law firms. Mr. Greenblatt is the author of Valor, which tells untold stories of 21^st century American soldiers, sailors, and Marines who faced gut-wrenching decisions to overcome enormous odds. He is a frequent speaker at industry events, and he regularly appears in the news media, including appearances on CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, and CBS. His columns have been published by The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Economist, Newsweek, The Daily Beast, The Hill, and others. He graduated from Columbia University School of Law, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone scholar, and he earned his undergraduate degree from Duke University.

Paul Douglas Lockhart is Professor of History at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, where he teaches military and European history. His seven single-author books include The Drillmaster of Valley Forge: The Baron de Steuben and the Making of the American Army (HarperCollins, 2008), Firepower: How Weapons Shaped Warfare (Basic Books, 2021), and Denmark, 1513-1660: The Rise and Decline of a Renaissance Monarchy (Oxford, 2007). He is an elected member of the Royal Society for Danish History. From 2014 to 2017, he served as Brage Golding Distinguished Professor of Research at Wright State; in 2021, he was named Ohio Distinguished Historian by the Ohio Academy of History; in 2022, he was given the Trustees' Award for Faculty Excellence, the highest academic honor granted by Wright State. He lives in Centerville, Ohio, but is a native of Dutchess County in New York's Hudson Valley.

Rose Gill served as Commissioner of the New York City Department of Investigation (DOI) from 2002 through 2013 and was the longest-serving Commissioner in its 140-year history. Rose’s leadership led to significant increases in DOI’s productivity, including assets recovered for New York City, and a comprehensive corruption-prevention program. In 2013, Rose also helped create the Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity at Columbia Law School, which focuses on accountability in government and municipal jurisdictions, and the work of inspectors general. Prior to her appointment at DOI, Rose was a federal prosecutor for ten years in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, where she also served on the executive staff as Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division and Chief of the Crime Control Strategies Unit. She has taught Trial Advocacy as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Fordham University School of Law and worked as a litigator in the private sector. Rose is the former Chair of the New York City Campaign Finance Board (2014-2017), a national model for nonpartisan regulation of public financing of campaigns and for voters’ assistance. Currently, Rose is principal of the Bloomberg Associates Municipal Integrity team at Bloomberg Philanthropies where she helps to promote transparency and establish anti-corruption measures in cities on a pro bono basis.