Sandy Thatcher, a 1965 graduate of Princeton University summa cum laude in philosophy, is a past director of Penn State University Press (1989 to 2009). Earlier he was employed for twenty-two years by Princeton University Press where he started as a copyeditor and ended as editor-in-chief. In retirement he acquires books in political science for Lynne Rienner Publishers and in political theory for the University of Rochester Press. He has been an Associate of the Tower Center for Political Studies at SMU since 2010 and a Friend of the Library there. A self-taught expert in copyright law, he served on the copyright committee of the Association of American University Presses (AAUP) from 1972 to 2015, chairing it for twenty-four of those years. He served twice for three-year terms each time on the AAUP board of directors and was president in 2007/08. He received the AAUP’s highest award in 1999.

A swimmer in college for four years, Sandy has been an active participant in US Masters Swimming since 1972, both as a competitor since 1972 and as a member of
its History and Archives Committee since 2017.