harvard graduate school of education youth advisory board

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The Harvard Ed Portal advances Harvard’s commitment to education through youth programs that are designed to support classroom learning. From mentoring and clubs, to arts immersion, and High School Lab Pathways, these opportunities deepen students’ knowledge across subjects while fostering college and career readiness.

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For my students, the Life Science Laboratory Apprenticeship Program presents a potentially life-changing opportunity. Having them in the lab—working with researchers, talking about furthering their education—gives my students an opportunity to learn new skills from scientists who are at the top of their fields.

Brian Novoson, M.Ed. Biology Teacher, Mary Lyon Pilot High School

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The Harvard Ed Portal is deeply committed to supporting the learning and growth of local high school students through programming focused on academic, professional, and identity development. Students will dive into new and existing interests, build relationships with peers and mentors, and expand their horizons as they complete their high school careers and gain additional tools, knowledge, and experiences to inform their choices and decisions post-graduation.

Life Science Apprenticeships

Launched in spring 2018, the Life Science Apprenticeship Program gives students—who have not been introduced to life science work as a potential career—an understanding of opportunities associated with biotechnology and research science. Students learn laboratory and workplace skills, and are then placed in paid, part-time, six-week summer apprenticeships to expose them to a STEM workplace and the responsibilities of a STEM administrative or laboratory career.

Summer Internship Program

The Harvard Ed Portal Summer Internship Program was created to offer job opportunities to high schoolers in the Boston area. The program provides a valuable introduction to the work environment and consists of three main components: intern cohort projects, college and career awareness training, and Harvard staff mentoring.

In Summer 2020, 34 high schoolers from Allston-Brighton and Cambridge remotely worked with Harvard undergraduate and graduate student managers to create unique projects based on their interests, ranging from arts, web development, lab skills, storytelling, to youth programming. Below you will find a website created by one of the intern cohorts that showcases all the final student projects.

View All Student Projects

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Our Harvard undergraduate mentors encourage youth to develop strong self-identities as enthusiastic learners—by supporting creativity, validating questions, and instilling the skills to search for answers.

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Each semester, approximately 25 Harvard College undergraduates serve as mentors to Allston-Brighton youth.

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Scholarships are offered in partnership with Harvard Athletics and vary by age level and sport each year.

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Courses are offered for a variety of levels and are taught by members of the Harvard swimming and diving teams, under the supervision of the varsity coaching staff. 

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Week-long summer science programs about a range of topics, including geology, animals, technology, and more!

• Summer Explorations

Launched in 2016, Summer Explorations are weeklong programs for Ed Portal Members that are carefully designed to enrich learning, stimulate curiosity, and reduce summer learning loss. Past program topics have included robotics, ceramics, bike workshops, biology, theater and more.

Learn About Summer Explorations

The Ed Portal works with University faculty, students, staff, museums, and centers to develop tailored programming for local youth.

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The Ed Portal collaborates with local organizations to integrate community resources into events and programs. 

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• The Making Caring Common Project

The Making Caring Common Project at the Harvard Graduate School of Education seeks to place moral and social development at the center of conversations about raising and educating children, and seeks to strengthen the ability of schools, parents, and communities to support the development of children’s ethical and social capacities, including the ability to take responsibility for others, to think clearly about and pursue justice, and to treat people well day to day.  The Making Caring Common Project is currently focused on three primary, overlapping bodies of work: (1) a school-based data driven improvement initiative, (2) resource and intervention development, and (3) media and messaging strategy development and dissemination. 

Learn more on the  Making Caring Common website . 

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Rick Weissbourd , Harvard Graduate School of Education

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How Teachers Can Make Caring More Common - Five tangible steps to foster a climate of mutual respect and caring in the classroom

From HGSE Usable Knowledge, learn about five strategies that can help students become more respectful and caring.

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Nonie K. Lesaux

Nonie K. Lesaux is the Juliana W. and William Foss Thompson Professor of Education and Society at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.  She leads a research program that focuses on promoting the language and literacy skills of today’s children and youth from diverse linguistic, cultural and economic backgrounds. Her research has included longitudinal studies investigating reading and language development among diverse children and youth as well as experimental evaluations of strategies to increase literacy learning opportunities for children and adolescents. This program of research has been supported by research grants from several organizations and agencies, including the Institute of Education Sciences, the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute for Child Health and Human Development, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The practical applications of this work are featured in numerous publications, including, “Making Assessment Matter: Using Test Results to Differentiate Reading Instruction,” a guide for instructional leaders and “Cultivating Knowledge, Building Language,” an instructional guide for educators serving English language learners.  She is the author of a widely circulated state literacy report, “Turning the Page: Refocusing Massachusetts for Reading Success,” that forms the basis for a Third Grade Reading Proficiency bill passed in Massachusetts. The legislation established an Early Literacy Expert Panel, which Lesaux co-chairs, charged with developing new policies and policy-based initiatives in a number of domains that influence children’s early literacy development.  In July 2015, Massachusetts Governor Charles Baker appointed Lesaux as the chair of the Commonwealth’s Board of Early Education and Care.

Lesaux recently served on the U.S. Department of Education’s Reading First Advisory Committee and the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council’s Committee on the Science of Children Birth to Age 8. She is a recipient of the William T. Grant Scholars Award and of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor given by the United States government to young professionals beginning their independent research careers.  A native of Canada, Lesaux earned her doctorate in educational psychology and special education from the University of British Columbia.

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Atnre Alleyne

Stacey Childress

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Chris Gabrieli

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Ted Mitchell

Former college president and top federal policymaker Ted Mitchell became president of the American Council on Education (ACE) on September 1,...

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Andrew J. Rotherham

Christopher Ruszkowski

Christopher N. Ruszkowski was recently named Chief Executive Officer of Meeting Street Schools in South Carolina, a unique network of independent and...

Dr. Doug Staiger

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Fernando Reimers

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Fernando Reimers is the Ford Foundation Professor of the Practice of International Education and Director of the Global Education Innovation Initiative at Harvard University. He is an elected member of the U.S. National Academy of Education and of the International Academy of Education. An expert in the field of Global Education, his research and teaching focus on understanding how to educate children and youth so they can thrive in the 21st century. He was a member of UNESCOs Commission on the Futures of Education which wrote the report Reimagining Our Futures Together. A New Social Contract for Education . He has developed curriculum aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals which is in use in many schools throughout the world. During the COVID-19 pandemic he led numerous comparative studies examining the educational consequences of the pandemic and identifying options to sustain educational opportunity and to build back better.

In the graduate courses he teaches at Harvard on education policy and educational innovation he has developed signature approaches to engage students to contribute solutions to challenging education issues. Most recently, these approaches have included the design of strategies to sustain educational opportunity during the pandemic and developing country specific strategies to improve education aligned with UNESCO’s Futures of Education Report.

His current work focuses on educational innovation and on the impact of education policy, leadership, and teacher professional development on education that supports the holistic development of children and youth. He directs the Global Education Innovation Initiative, a cross-country research and practice collaborative focusing on education for the 21st century. He has written or edited 50 academic books, of which the most recent include: Educating Students to Improve the World , a theory of how to align education systems with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, Education to Build Back Better , a comparative study of how we can use lessons from large scale education reform;  Primary and Secondary Education during COVID-19 , a comparative study on the educational impact of COVID-19; and  University and School Collaborations during a Pandemic , a comparative study of the way in which universities in 20 countries partnered with schools to sustain educational opportunity during the pandemic.

As part of his commitment to advancing educational opportunity, he serves on multiple advisory boards and committees at Harvard, particularly focused in advancing the global mission of the University and enhancing the effectiveness of the university’s programs to address climate change. He has served on the Harvard faculty since 1998. Before that he worked at the Universidad Central de Venezuela, the Harvard Institute for International Development and the World Bank.

Publications

• Reimers, F., Amaechi, U., Banerji, A. and Wang, M. (Eds.) Education to Build Back Better: What can we Learn from Education Reform for a Post-Pandemic World. Cham, Switzerland: Springer. 2022.
• Vincent-Lacrin, S., Cobo, Cristobal and Reimers, F. (Eds.) How Learning Continued during the COVID 19 Pandemic: Global Lessons from Initiatives to Support Learners and Teachers. Paris: OECD. 2022.
• Reimers, F., Budler, T., Irele, I., Kenyon, C., Ovitt, S. and Pitcher, C. (Eds.) Advancing a New Social Contract for Education: Collaborations to Reimagine our Futures Together. Independently Published. 2022.
• Reimers, F. (Ed.) Primary and Secondary Education During COVID-19. Cham, Switzerland: Springer. 2021.
• Reimers, F. and Marmolejo, F. (Eds.) University and School Collaborations During a Pandemic: Sustaining Educational Opportunity and Reinventing Education. Cham, Switzerland: Springer. 2021.
• Reimers, F. and Opertti, R. (Eds.) Learning to Build Back Better Futures for Education: Lessons from Educational Innovation During the Covid-19 Pandemic. Geneva. UNESCO: International Burau of Education. 2021.
• Reimers, F., Amaechi, U., Banerji, A. and Wang, M. (Eds.) An Educational Calamity: Learning and Teaching During the COVID-19 Pandemic. 2021. Independently published.
• Reimers, F. (Ed). Leading Education Through COVID-19: Upholding the Right to Education. 2020. Independently published.
• Reimers, F. (Ed). Education and Climate Change. Springer. 2020. (published also in Spanish).
• Reimers, F. (Ed). Implementing Deeper Learning and 21st century Education Reforms. Springer. 2020.
• Reimers, F. Educating Students to Improve the World. Springer. 2020. (also published in Spanish and Turkish).
• Reimers, F. (Ed). Audacious Education Purposes: How Governments Transform the Goals of Education Systems. Springer. 2020. (also published in Spanish).
• Reimers, F. (Ed). Empowering teachers to build a better world: How Six Nations Support Teachers for 21st century Education. Springer. 2020. (also published in Portuguese and Spanish).
• Reimers, F. (Ed). Letters to a New Minister of Education. Seattle, WA: KDP. 2019. (Published also in Portuguese and Spanish by Organization of Iberoamerican States).
• Reimers, F. and C. Chung (Eds). Preparing Teachers to Educate Whole Students: An International Comparative Study. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Publishing. 2018. (Published in Spanish and Arabic).
• Reimers, F. et al. Learning to Collaborate for the Global Common Good. Charleston, SC: CreateSpace. 2018.
• Reimers, F., M.E. Ortega and P. Dyer. Learning to Improve the World: How Injaz Al-Arab Helps Youth in the Middle East Develop an Entrepreneurial Mindset. Charleston, SC: CreateSpace. 2018.
• Reimers, F. et al. Empowering Students to Improve the World in Sixty Lessons. Charleston, SC: CreateSpace. 2017. (Published in Arabic, Chinese, Italian, Portuguese, Turkish, and Spanish.)
• Reimers, F. (ed). Empowering All Students At Scale. Charleston, SC: CreateSpace. 2017. (Published in Portuguese and Spanish.)
• Reimers, F., V. Chopra, C. Chung, J. Higdon and E.B. O’Donnell. Empowering Global Citizens. Charleston, SC: CreateSpace. 2016). (Published in Spanish in 2018 and Portuguese in 2017.)
• Reimers, F. and C. Chung (eds). Teaching and Learning for the twenty first century. Cambridge. Harvard Education Press. 2016. (Published in Arabic, Chinese, Portuguese, Spanish and Turkish.)
• Reimers, F. (2012). “Innovative Universities” Revista. David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies. Harvard University. Fall 2012.
• Reimers, F., N. Cooc and J. Hashmi. 2012. Adapting Innovations Across Borders to Close Equity Gaps in Education. In Hyman, J. (Ed). Increasing Equity in Education. Oxford University Press.
• Reimers, F. (2010) “Pathways for Change. Educational Innovation in Latin America” Americas Quarterly. Fall 2010.
• Reimers, F. and C. Chung. (2010) “Teaching Human Rights in times of Peace and Conflict”. Development. 53(4)
• Reimers, F. (2010). Education au cosmopolitisme et à la paix. Raisons Educatives, Vol. 14.
• Reimers, F. “Building Entrepreneurial Organizations to make learning in school relevant” Innovations 2010 vol 5, 2. 53-56.
• Reimers, F. and S. Cardenas. Youth Civic Engagement in Mexico. In Torney-Purta, J. et al. (Editors). 2010. International Handbook of Youth Civic Engagement. John Wiley and Sons.
• Reimers, F. “Enlightening Globalization. An Opportunity for Continuing Education” Continuing Higher Education Review.September 2009 (volume 73).
• Reimers, F. Educating for Global Competency. In Cohen, J. and M. Malin (Editors). 2009. International Perspectives on the Goals of Universal Basic and Secondary EducationRoutlege Press.
• Reimers, F. and J. Jacobs. 2008. Leer (Comprender y Aprender ) y Escribir para Comunicarse. Desafios y Oportunidades para los Sistemas Educativos. Madrid. Editorial Santillana.
• Reimers, F. and F. Knaul. Mexico. In Epstein, Irving (Editor). 2008. The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Children's Issues Worldwide.
• Reimers, F. “Civic education when democracy is in flux: The impact of empirical research on policy and practice in Latin America.” Citizenship and Teacher Education Vol 3, No. 2, December 2007.
• Reimers, F. and S. Cardenas “Who benefits from School Based Management in Mexico.” Prospects. March 2007.
• Reimers, F. (Ed.) 2006. Aprender Mas y Mejor. Politicas, Programas y Oportunidades de Aprendizaje en Educacion Basica en Mexico. Fondo de Cultura Economica. México City.
• Reimers, F. “Citizenship, Identity and Education. Examining the Public Purposes of Schools in an Age of Globalization” Prospects. Vol. XXXVI, No 3. September 2006.
• Reimers, F. “Teaching Quality Matters. Pedagogy and Literacy Instruction of Poor Students in Mexico” Harvard Education Review. 2006.
• Reimers, F. Principally Women. Gender in the Politics of Mexican Education. In Randall, L. (ed.) The Changing Structure of Mexico. Pp. 278-294. M.E. Sharpe Publishers. 2006.
• Reimers, F. and E. Villegas-Reimers. Educating democratic citizens in Latin America. In Kagan, J. and L. Harrington (Eds.) Essays in Cultural Change. Pp 95-114. Routledge. 2006.
• Reimers, F. Social Progress in Latin America. Victor Bulmer-Thomas and John Coatsworth (Eds.). Cambridge Economic History of Latin America. Vol II. Pp. 427-480. Cambridge University Press. 2006.
• “Principally Women,” in The Changing Structure of Mexico (ed. by L. Randall), (2005).
• Reimers, F. “War, Education and Peace” Prospects. Vol. XXXIII, no 1. March 2003.
• "The Social Context of Educational Evaluation in Latin America," in International Handbook of Educational Evaluation (ed. by D. Nevo and D. Stufflebeam), (2003).
• Reimers, F. Compensatory Education Policies and Programs in Latin America. In Guthrie, J. (Ed.) Encyclopedia of Education, Second Edition. Macmillan Publishers, (2002).
• Unequal Schools, Unequal Chances: The Challenges to Equal Opportunity in the Americas at the End of the XX Century, Spanish translation available, (2000).
• "Educational Opportunities for Low-Income Families in Latin America," Prospects , (1999).
• "Educational Chances of the Poor at the End of the XX century," Prospects , (1999).
• Reimers, F. "Changing schools through participatory knowledge management in El Salvador: Can education systems learn?" in Chapman, D., L. Mahlck and A. Smulders (Eds.) From planning to action: Government initiatives to improve school level practice. London: Elsevier. 1997.
• "Education and Structural Adjustment: Unmet Needs and Missed Opportunities," in Education and Development: Tradition and Innovation (ed. by J. Lynch, C. Modgil, and S. Modgil), (1997).
• Informed Dialogue: Changing Education Policies Around the World, Spanish translation available (with N. McGinn), (1997).
• "Where are 60 Million Teachers? The Missing Voice in Educational Reforms Around the World," Prospects (with E. Villegas-Reimers), (1996).
• Hope or Despair? Primary Education in Pakistan (with D. Warwick), (1995).
• Education, Adjustment and Reconstruction: Options for Change, Spanish and French translations available (with L. Tiburcio), (1993).

Associations

• Member US National Academy of Education,(2023-)
• Council for International Exchange of Scholars Advisory Board to the Fulbright Scholar Program.,(2019-)
• Crown-Prince Education Council. United Arab Emirates.,(2019-)
• Director, Facing History and Ourselves.,(2018-)
• Director. Phalen Leadership Academies. Charter Schools of Indiana. 2011-2015.,(2017-)
• Director. Teach for All (chair of strategy committee).,(2014-)
• Advisory Board to the Organization of Ibero-American States.,(2006-)
• Council on Foreign Relations, (2005-),(2005-)
• Fellow of the International Academy of Education,(2005-)
• Comparative Education
• Education Leadership
• Global Education
• Twenty First Century Skills
• Educational Innovation
• Education Policy

Professional Education Programs

• Think Tank on Global Education

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Featured articles.

A Global View of Education and Climate Change

How Professor Fernando Reimers keeps the transition to a green economy at the forefront of his work

HGSE Students Tackle Pandemic-Related Issues in Education

Hill and Reimers Elected To NAEd

Reimers Testifies Before House Committee on Learning Loss in Latin America and the Caribbean

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Improving the Teacher Workforce

• Posted May 20, 2024
• By Elizabeth M. Ross

Mary Laski understands how vital effective teachers are. “I had the privilege of having great teachers and know how important that was for me getting here,” says the HGSE doctoral marshal whose mother was also a teacher. Inspired by her own positive experiences, Laski wants to help put more great teachers in front of more students.

For her doctoral dissertation called Essays on the Teacher Workforce , Laski wrote three separate pieces. Two of her papers have already been shared publicly, including research on lessons the teaching profession can learn from encouraging developments in the nursing field and an evaluation of a pilot teaching program in Mississippi .  The pilot allowed some school principals in the state to tackle teacher shortages by selecting in-house paraeducators and other experienced staff, who had not been able to pass Mississippi’s traditional licensing exams, to fill open teaching positions using provisional licenses. Because Laski found positive results with the program, Mississippi has moved forward with a performance-based licensure pathway for some teachers based on their success in the classroom. Laski’s third paper examined the role that principals play in the quality of teachers in schools.

“If you read the education news, all you hear about is how hard it is to be a teacher and how everything is going wrong with the teaching profession, and there's some truth in that,” Laski explains. “But I ended my research journey on an optimistic note. There are bright spots and places where we could be thinking more carefully about supporting teachers and getting great teachers in the classrooms.”

Laski recently reflected on ways to improve the teaching field and shared what she values most about her time at HGSE.

Where do you think the hope lies for the teaching profession, following the research that you’ve done?   I think the pandemic really put a spotlight on how hard it is to be a teacher and a lot of issues with the profession, so I think this is a prime moment now to be thinking more critically about this role that we all know is really important but is also really hard. It doesn’t have to be this way. Nursing has figured out a way to be a more appealing profession and there are ways that we could be thinking about teaching differently to make it more appealing. Also, principals clearly can be doing things to support their schools in their management of teaching. And we could be thinking more carefully about how to support principals in making the best decisions for their schools.

How has your time at HGSE helped you?   Six years is a long time and the amount of things that have happened is mind blowing to me. There was the global pandemic. I also became a parent, which was a huge personal change, so I feel like a very different person than I was six years ago. I feel very grateful for all of the opportunities I've had. I think I'm most grateful for my cohort of other doctoral candidates. We became really, really close our first year and I’m so glad about that because we were able to keep our community going when we all went virtual the second year [during the pandemic.] We had Zoom study groups and regular reading groups.  We were able to keep supporting each other continuously. That community, I feel, is the only way that I made it through this program so, I'm very, very thankful for them. 

How did you balance being a new mom and getting your Ph.D. at the same time?    Several of my friends also became parents for the first time so there's a group of new mom friends and having other people going through that big change with you or that have done it recently is very helpful. But yes, particularly managing being in a Ph.D. program, I could not have done that without many other women in my same program who helped me understand how to manage it.... I'm actually expecting another kid this summer. There are also some other people that are graduating pregnant. We have a good community of moms.

What does it mean to be chosen by your peers to be a Commencement marshal?   It’s really one of the most meaningful parts of graduation for me. I built lifelong friendships in this program. I learned a lot in my classes, but I think I maybe learned more from my cohort mates and that is really one of the greatest benefits of this program. I didn't even appreciate, before applying or starting here, how much I would benefit from having that group of colleagues who were thinking about similar things and so smart and so caring and going through the same things as me. I'm just very, very flattered and honored.

What are your future plans?    I actually have already started a position at Arizona State University as a research principal, continuing a lot of the same work, thinking about how we can be reimagining what teaching looks like to make it more sustainable and attractive to folks. Arizona State has this big initiative called the Next Education Workforce. It's basically getting teachers to work together in teams, sharing a roster of students, and distributing their expertise — really making the job look different, so that they're working together a lot more, collaborating. Everyone always talks about the first year of teaching being so hard, but when you're all alone in a classroom all day with kids and it's really hard, that just makes it even worse. The opportunity to have more support with your co-workers is something that we look for in a lot of professions. What I like about my job is collaborating with really smart, caring people and we don't always offer teachers that opportunity.

The latest research, perspectives, and highlights from the Harvard Graduate School of Education

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Taubman Advisory Board

Robert s. taubman – board chair.

Mr. Taubman serves on the executive board of the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts and is a member and immediate past Chairman of the Real Estate Roundtable in Washington, DC. He is a member and past trustee of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) and founding Chairman of ULI’s Detroit Regional District Council. He also is a member and past trustee of the International Council of Shopping Centers. Mr. Taubman is a member of the board of directors of Comerica Incorporated and is a past board member of Sotheby’s Holdings, Inc.

Among his many civic and charitable commitments, Mr. Taubman serves on the executive committee of Southeastern Michigan Council of Governments and is as a member of the board of directors of Business Leaders for Michigan. He is a trustee of the Cranbrook Educational Community, where he is Chairman of the audit committee. He serves on the University of Michigan Investment Advisory Committee, and is a council member of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy Schools. Mr. Taubman holds a B.S. degree in economics from Boston University.  

Christopher Ackerley

Judith Bunnell

Before launching Flex, Ms. Bunnell spent a decade in the non-profit sector focused on supporting K-12 and higher education at national and international organizations, such as the DC College Success Foundation, The Sallie Mae Fund, NPower, World Vision and Seattle’s “It’s About Time for Kids!”. She successfully managed complex national education projects, developed original classroom curriculum and managed the implementation and evaluation of youth development/ college preparation programs.  She is an accomplished trainer with diverse communities, a creative problem solver and strategist, and a skilled fundraiser and board development specialist.

Prior to her work with the education sector, Ms. Bunnell served as Deputy Mayor and Budget & Planning Director for the City of Seattle, and Chief Financial Officer of its public utilities.  She started her career as a public finance investment banker at Piper Jaffray. Ms. Bunnell holds a Master in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and an undergraduate degree from Yale College.  

debra a. cafaro

A recognized industry leader, Cafaro set and oversaw execution of a long-term strategy that drove Ventas’s market capitalization to $28 billion in 2019, from $200 million since her leadership began in 1999.  The Company’s compound annual total shareholder return (TSR) has exceeded 20 percent for the 21 years ended December 31, 2020. 

Widely-acclaimed for her strategic vision and enduring business success, Cafaro has received multiple professional recognitions.  Cafaro has been twice named one of the World’s 100 Most Powerful Women (Forbes Magazine), a list of global political, media, entertainment and business leaders; a Top 100 Best-Performing CEOs in the World for six consecutive years (Harvard Business Review); and the top female executive in the commercial real estate industry (National Real Estate Investor).  She has also been recognized as one of the 100 Most Influential People in Healthcare six times (Modern Healthcare); highlighted in The 70 Elite real estate executives who shaped the industry for the past 70 years (Real Estate Forum); and selected multiple times to the Top 25 Women in Healthcare  (Modern Healthcare) and the All-America Executive Team (Institutional Investor).  Cafaro was named a Top 50 Woman in World Business (Financial Times), one of the Bankable 21 CEOs in Jim Cramer’s book Get Rich Carefully and one of nine Game-Changers in commercial real estate since 2000 (GlobeSt.com).  To honor her contributions to her industries, she received the Industry Leadership Award from the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (NAREIT), where she previously served as Chair, and was inducted into the ASHA Senior Living Hall of Fame.  

In addition to her work at Ventas, Cafaro is broadly engaged across business, public policy, academic, sports and non-profit sectors.  Cafaro is the immediate past Chair of the Real Estate Roundtable , a public policy organization that brings together leaders of the nation’s top real estate firms on key national policy issues and the Economic Club of Chicago .  She is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the Business Council , and serves on the Boards of The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. (NYSE: PNC) , the University of Chicago , the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and World Business Chicago .  She is an Advisory Board Member of the Harvard Kennedy School Taubman Center for State and Local Government .  She served successive terms on the Board of the Chicago Infrastructure Trust.  Cafaro is an owner and member of the Management Committee of the NHL Pittsburgh Penguins , 2016 and 2017 Stanley Cup Champions. 

Cafaro established the Cafaro Scholars program at the University of Chicago Law School.  It provides full scholarships to students with outstanding potential whose parents did not attend college.  Over 20 students, many of them diverse, have been recipients of the Cafaro scholarships. 

Prior to joining Ventas, Cafaro was President of an NYSE-listed multi-family REIT, a practicing lawyer for 13 years and a judicial clerk for the Hon. J. Dickson Phillips, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.  She received her J.D. cum laude from the University of Chicago Law School, where she was named its 2011 Distinguished Alumna, and her B.A. magna cum laude from the University of Notre Dame.  She is married and has two children.

Henry Cisneros

Mr. Cisneros’ community-building career began at the local level. After serving three terms as a City Councilmember, in 1981, Mr. Cisneros became the first Hispanic-American mayor of a major U.S. city, San Antonio, Texas. During his four terms as Mayor, he helped rebuild the city’s economic base and spurred the creation of jobs through massive infrastructure and downtown improvements. After completing four terms as Mayor, Mr. Cisneros formed Cisneros Asset Management Company, a fixed income management firm operating nationally and ranked at the time as the second fastest growing money manager in the nation. In 1992, President Clinton appointed Mr. Cisneros to be Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. As a member of President Clinton’s Cabinet, Secretary Cisneros was credited with initiating the revitalization of many of the nation’s public housing developments and with formulating policies which contributed to achieving the nation’s highest ever homeownership rate.  After leaving HUD in 1997, Mr. Cisneros was president and chief operating officer of Univision Communications and served on Univision’s Board of Directors until 2020.  Mr. Cisneros has served as President of the National League of Cities, as Deputy Chair of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, and as Vice-Chairman of Habitat for Humanity International. Mr. Cisneros remains active in San Antonio’s leadership where he is former Chairman of the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, the San Antonio Economic Development Foundation, the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and BioMed SA. He is a former member of the advisory board of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.    Mr. Cisneros holds a bachelor of arts and a master’s degree in urban and regional planning from Texas A&M University, a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard University, and a doctorate in public administration from George Washington University. 

Greg Dawley

Before his career in public finance, Mr. Dawley served as Assistant Chief of Staff to Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan. Mr. Dawley graduated with an M.P.P. from the University of Southern California and a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Michigan.

Kathleen delaski

Mr. Fish is a fixture on numerous Boards focused on improving the economy and raising the competitiveness of the Northeast region, particularly the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Boston and New York. He is the founding member and former Chair of the Massachusetts Competitive Partnership (MACP), former Chairman of the Board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, and former Chair and current Executive Committee member for the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Fish is a member of the National Business Roundtable and Construction Industry Roundtable, and he is a director of the Real Estate Roundtable. In New York City, Mr. Fish is a member of the Partnership for New York City, New York Building Congress, and Real Estate Board of New York.

Mr. Fish is committed to philanthropic endeavors focused on creating opportunities for young people. He is the current Vice-Chair and former Chairman of the Board at Boston College, the first non-alumnus to ever fulfill that role, currently chairs the Boston College Board of Regents, and sits on the Board of Trustees for Bowdoin College. He is also the founder and Chairman of Scholar Athletes, a program that leverages the proven link between school athletics participation and strong academic performance to improve the academic performance of inner-city high school students in the Boston and Springfield, Massachusetts Public Schools. Mr. Fish is chairman of the Board for Brigham and Women’s Hospital and serves on the Executive Committee at Partners HealthCare.

Mr. Fish is a graduate of Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine with a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science.   He received an Honorary Doctorate of Engineering Technology Degree from Wentworth Institute of Technology. He is also the recipient of an honorary degree from Regis College and Curry College.  

Patricia Hurter

Prior to Lyndra, Dr Hurter was Senior Vice President of Pharmaceutical and Preclinical Sciences at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: VRTX). She also served as Interim Head of Global Regulatory Affairs from 2013-2014 and oversaw several label expansions for Kalydeco® and the submission of the new drug application for Orkambi®. She played a leadership role in the development and commercialization of 5 transformative therapies for Vertex: Incivek®, Kalydeco®, Orkambi® and Symdeko® and Trikafta®. Prior to joining Vertex, Dr. Hurter was Director, Formulation Design and Characterization for Merck where she was a key member of the early development team for Januvia®, a treatment for Type II diabetes.

A respected thought leader in the pharmaceutical industry, Dr. Hurter is a frequent contributor to many scientific publications. At Vertex, she founded and was the executive sponsor of “IWILL,” a Vertex employee network devoted to the advancement of women leaders. She holds a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an M.S. in mechanical engineering from West Virginia University and earned a B.Sc. in chemical engineering, cum laude, from the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa.  

CHRISTOPHER ILITCH

Mr. Ilitch has held a variety of roles throughout the organization over the past 30 years. Currently, in addition to his leadership of Ilitch Holdings, he serves as the governor and president and CEO of the Detroit Red Wings, as well as the chairman and CEO of the Detroit Tigers. Mr. Ilitch also serves as chairman of Ilitch Charities, a nonprofit organization that promotes charitable purposes aimed at developing communities and enhancing lives.

Mr. Ilitch is currently leading the most ambitious development effort in the Ilitch organization’s history, The District Detroit. This dynamic sports and entertainment district is comprised of eight world-class theatres, five neighborhoods, four professional sports teams and three multi-use sports facilities, including the new, state-of-the-art Little Caesars Arena – home of the Detroit Red Wings, the Detroit Pistons and world-class entertainment and community events. The economic impact of The District Detroit to the region and the state of Michigan is expected to exceed $2 billion.

Beyond his work at the Ilitch companies, Mr. Ilitch is involved in various business and civic groups that help improve and promote Detroit and the region. He serves on the board, executive committee and nominating committee for Business Leaders for Michigan as well as the board and executive committee for the Downtown Detroit Partnership. He is also a member of the board of directors for the Detroit Economic Club.

Mr. Ilitch has served on host/hospitality committees for several large-scale sporting events in Detroit, including the 2010 NCAA Men’s Frozen Four Hockey Championship (co-chair), the 2009 NCAA Final Four Men’s Basketball Tournament, Super Bowl XL and the 2005 Major League Baseball All-Star game (chair).

Mr. Ilitch holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He and his wife Kelle have three children and reside in metro Detroit.  

Charles Isgar

While representing the then-mayor Richard Riordan, Mr. Isgar had the inspirational idea and master plan for the development of the Staples Center project. This exciting sports venue project capitalized on the strong brands of the Lakers, Kings, and Clippers to lead the most significant private investment in decades for the City of Los Angeles redevelopment and enhanced the public investment in the adjacent convention center.

Mr. Isgar also has worked with stadium construction, finance, redevelopment, and public policy issues for the ongoing Los Angeles efforts to return NFL to the market place. He has provided support to Olympic and Super Bowl bids, PGA Championship, World Cup soccer, and collegiate championships as opportunities to showcase the city and promote the Los Angeles region.

Mr. Isgar has also served on the city's Productivity and Efficiency Commission, Private Industry Council, Police and Fire Pension Board, and currently the Sports and Entertainment Commission, and USA Volleyball Foundation Board of Directors. He received his MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School and his PhD from the Sol Price school of public Policy at the University of Southern California.  

Mayor Michael Nutter

With the support of an experienced, professional staff, Mayor Nutter made significant progress on every pledge: homicides were at an almost 50 year low at the end of his tenure; high school graduation and college degree attainment rates increased significantly; Philadelphia added hundreds of miles in bike lanes and trails and launched the first low-income friendly bike share system in America, called Indego; and Philadelphia 's population grew every year since 2008, including the largest percentage of millennial population growth in the nation. He actively recruited businesses to set up shop in Philadelphia, both domestically and internationally with tax reforms, better business services and international trade missions.

Mayor Nutter made a commitment to strong financial stewardship, vigorously managing the City through the worst economic recession since the Great Depression. As a result, Philadelphia’s credit rating was upgraded to the "A" category by the three major credit rating agencies for the first time since the 1970s. In 2013, Philadelphia City Council passed his Actual Value Initiative, the City's first ever property assessment system overhaul, transforming a broken and corrupt system into a fair, accurate and understandable system.

In affiliation with the National League of Cities, Mayor Nutter and New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu launched Cities United, an initiative aimed at creating partnerships between cities, non-profits, and other stakeholders to combat violence and crime among African-American men and boys. He also serves on President Obama's My Brother's Keeper Advisory Council.

In June 2013, Mayor Nutter concluded his tenure as President of the United States Conference of Mayors, which is the official non-partisan organization of almost 1,300 U.S. cities with populations of 30,000 or more. In June 2015, Mayor Nutter completed his year of service as President of the Pennsylvania Municipal League, which brings together municipal government officials from across the Commonwealth to advance policy initiatives state-wide.

Mayor Nutter is a life-long Philadelphian, born and raised in West Philadelphia and educated at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He has been dedicated to public service since his youth.  Mayor Nutter is happily married to his wife Lisa, and a proud parent to Christian and Olivia.  

Mayor Annise Parker

She currently serves on the Policy and Global Affairs Committee of the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine and the boards of Houston Botanic Garden, Houston BARC Foundation, Patient Care Intervention Council, and the Climate Disclosure Project (CDP).

Prior to joining Victory Fund and Victory Institute, she was Senior Vice-President and Chief Strategy Officer of BakerRipley, a community development nonprofit.  She was also a Fellow at the Doerr Institute for New Leaders and Professor in the Practice at Rice University. She served on the boards of FirstNet – created by Congress to implement a nationwide broadband network for first–responders and the Airbnb Mayor’s Advisory Board.

In 2010 Time magazine named Mayor Parker one of the 100 most influential people in the world. She was named top US mayor and seventh ranked world mayor in 2014 by City Mayors Foundation. She has received numerous awards during her career, including Scenic Houston’s Scenic Visionary Award, Guardian of the Human Spirit Award from Holocaust Museum Houston, Guardian of the Bay Award from Galveston Bay Foundation, Rice University Distinguished Alumna for 2011, and Local Arts Leadership honoree by Americans For the Arts.

Mayor Parker has been involved in Victory Fund and Victory Institute since its founding. She was endorsed by Victory Fund in all her successful campaigns for elected office, served on the board of directors, is an alum of Victory Institute’s Candidate & Campaign Training, and is a former Victory Institute David Bohnett Leaders Fellow. Her first LGBTQ organizing event was the Texas Gay Conference in 1975, and she was a founding member of the Rice University Gay and Lesbian Support Group in 1979. She served as an officer or board member of dozens of organizations, including President of the Houston Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus, Co-Chair of the Lesbian/Gay Rights Lobby of Texas, Co-Chair of the Lesbian and Gay Democrats of Texas and Treasurer of the Names Project Houston. She was a community liaison to the Houston Police department for many years, and created and taught an LGBTQ human relations module to cadets.

Mayor Parker graduated from Rice University with a Bachelor of Arts Degree. In the private sector, she spent 20 years working in the oil and gas industry, including 18 years with Mosbacher Energy Company. She also co-owned Inklings, a lesbian/feminist bookstore for 10 years.  

Jeanette Hernandez Prenger

Jeanette Hernandez Prenger serves as the founder, CEO and President of ECCO Select. She leads one of the Top 500 Hispanic businesses in the country, with more than 300 employees serving clients across North America. ECCO Select is a talent acquisition and consulting company, specializing in providing people, process and technology solutions.

She leverages her expertise in quickly assessing situations, identifying issues and developing the right solutions to help businesses strengthen operations, revenue, profitability and competitive advantages. Jeanette has put these skills into practice at ECCO Select since 1995. Beginning with a single client, ECCO Select has grown into a leading provider of technology talent for Fortune 1000 companies and government agencies, with offices in Kansas City, MO, Washington, D.C., and St. Louis, MO.

Jeanette advocates for business and economic growth through her leadership and involvement in organizations around the country. She serves on the national boards of The Latino Coalition (Chair), Junior Achievement USA, Boy Scouts of America, Women Impacting Public Policy and Orphaned Starfish Foundation, as well those closer to home – Missouri Tourism Commission (commissioner), Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank Economic Advisory Council, Kansas City Convention & Visitors Association (Visit KC, vice chair), the American Royal, the Heart of America Council of Boy Scouts, Kansas City Tech Council, and Park University (Trustee Chair). She is a former chair of the Greater Kansas City Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and former vice chair of the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (USHCC).  

Tom Rousakis

Mr. Rousakis has focused on US infrastructure finance since 1997 and is a recognized authority on the growing US public-private partnership market. Mr. Rousakis joined EYIA in 2013 after sixteen years in infrastructure investment banking for Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. Mr. Rousakis has led transaction teams from inception through execution of debt and advisory assignments, developing rating agency, deal structure and investor marketing strategies for over $25 billion in infrastructure projects for transportation agencies, universities, and state and local governments generally. Mr. Rousakis currently leads project teams for a variety of highway, transit, multi-modal, resiliency and social infrastructure projects.

Mr. Rousakis currently leads the efforts of EYIA, which provides public and private sector clients with financial, commercial, and transaction advisory support for large-scale and complex infrastructure projects and programs, from the earliest stages of analysis and strategy through procurement, financial close, construction and operations. EYIA maintains infrastructure professionals across the country who specialize in development strategies to deliver pathfinder projects in the transportation, social/governmental facilities, water/wastewater, environmental/resiliency and renewable energy infrastructure sectors. EYIA assists clients in devising and evaluating financial plans, delivery approaches and public-private partnership opportunities for projects and programs that involve complex funding and financing considerations.

Mr. Rousakis’ notable past and current engagements include the redevelopment of Moynihan Station in New York City, the Gateway Tunnel between New York and New Jersey, the Denver Eagle Commuter Rail and Denver Union Station projects, UC Merced’s 2020 Project, and the Fargo-Moorhead Flood Diversion Program.

Prior to his work in infrastructure, Mr. Rousakis worked for the City of New York and interned for the City of San Francisco and non-profits. Mr. Rousakis lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife and two children. He serves as vice president of the Flatbush Development Corporation and a Trustee of the Citizen’s Budget Commission of New York. Mr. Rousakis received his AB from Harvard College and his Master in Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School of Government.   Jill Shah

The Shah Foundation extended their school food work during the pandemic through partnerships with the YMCAs across the State of Massachusetts and local restaurants, to tackle both the issues of unemployment and student food access using the federal USDA subsidy with a program called Local Lunchbox. Local Lunchbox is now also being delivered in Chicago via a partnership with the Obama Foundation.

The Shah Foundation has also recently supported a Guaranteed Income program in the City of Chelsea, which aimed to help its most vulnerable residents fight the unrelenting impact of Covid-19. The program is the subject of a documentary film called Raising the Floor. The film is a moving narrative of a struggling community coming together to feed neighbors and strangers during an unprecedented public health crisis, and a group of local leaders whose sense of helplessness and concern led to bold policy innovation. Raising the Floor was selected Best Documentary Short Film at the 2022 Globe Docs Audience Awards. The City of Chelsea continues to use the guaranteed income framework to support its residents.

Additionally, in collaboration with the State of Massachusetts, Jill and her team did extensive research into Covid-19 testing for K-12 students, which has resulted in a comprehensive testing program for schools and allowed public schools to reopen. This program was used as a model across the country to encourage districts to reopen schools and bring students back into their classrooms.

Jill co-hosts a national podcast on issues in education called Deep Dives, and also co-hosts a hyper-local Boston podcast which covers Boston Public Schools School Committee meetings called Last Night at School Committee.

Jill is a graduate of Providence College. Before launching the foundation, Jill was an entrepreneur in Boston and New York, involved in launching and managing a few different internet and software start-ups. She served on the executive team during the turn-around and sale of Mercator Software. She sold her last company, Jill’s List, which focused on the collaboration of traditional and integrative medicine modalities to MINDBODY in 2013.

Jill is a recent recipient of the Boston Chamber of Commerce Distinguished Bostonian Award, and the Playworks Game Changer Award. She was cited as one of Boston’s 100 most influential Bostonians in Boston Magazine. Jill previously served as a Co-chair of the Massachusetts Commonwealth’s Covid-19 Command Center Food Access Task Force. She currently serves on the boards of the Overseers of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, the Overseers of the Museum of Fine Arts, the Advisory Council of the Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream, and the Board of Trustees of the Belmont Hill School. Jill and her husband, Niraj, reside in Boston with their two children.

Michael Spies

Michael is on the Board of Directors and chairs the Audit Committee of TechnoServe, a global non-profit reducing poverty in the developing world.  He is a former Global Governing Trustee of the Urban Land Institute (ULI), and chaired the Jury for awarding its highest honor, the ULI Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development. He also serves on the Advisory Board of Declaration Partners; while also serving on the boards of several early stage enterprises. Mr. Spies graduated cum laude from Princeton University and from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government with a Master’s degree in City and Regional Planning.  

Ajay Thomas

Mr. Thomas received his B.A. in Economics from Southwestern University, where he was selected as a representative from the United States and named a General Course Scholar to the London School of Economics. Ajay later earned his Master’s in Public Policy from Harvard University, and his J.D. from the University of Texas. He has been appointed to serve as a member to the Texas Business Leadership Council (formerly the Governor’s Business Council) and is a member of the TBLC’s Legislative Task Force and active in their subcommittees on Texas Public Education and Infrastructure helping to advise state leaders on various public policy matters. Ajay was most recently appointed to serve as a member of the Board of Visitors at Southwestern University advising its leadership on matters of higher education policy. He holds his Series 7, Series 53, Series 79, Series 52, and Series 50 FINRA licenses.  

Mr. Walder was the Chief Executive Officer of MTR Corporation in Hong Kong, one of the world’s largest rail and property companies. Prior to that, he was the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the largest transit agency in the U.S.

From 2007 to 2009, Mr. Walder was a partner at McKinsey & Company London where he was the global leader of the firm’s Infrastructure Practice. Between 2001 and 2007, he was Managing Director, Finance and Planning at Transport for London, where he was credited with the introduction of the Oyster card and with drafting London's successful bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics. Prior to that, he was a Lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Mr. Walder holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics with Honors from Binghamton University, Harpur College, and a Master in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He also completed the Executive Programme in Strategic Leadership from Templeton College at the University of Oxford.  

Tracey Zhen

Ms. Zhen has 20 years of experience in leadership roles at consumer technology companies, including senior management roles at TripAdvisor and Expedia where she oversaw business strategy, finance, operations, product development, and marketing. 

At TripAdvisor, Ms. Zhen oversaw the company’s vacation rental brands, scaling the business and growing revenue through strategic acquisitions and the restructuring of its business models. At Expedia, Ms. Zhen served as general manager for emerging markets and strategy, leading international business growth in Europe and Latin America. There she launched new markets, built a European strategy team, and scaled the business to multi-million-dollar growth. Ms. Zhen has a proven track record of scaling start-up businesses through product innovation, technology platform development, and consumer marketing.

Ms. Zhen started her career in investment banking at Bear, Stearns & Co., Inc., and she held senior roles at IAC where she built and oversaw a finance and analytics team, was responsible for new business development and subsequent wind-down and aided corporate restructurings and capital financings.

Ms. Zhen is a graduate of New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business holding dual B.S. degrees in Finance and Information Systems. She is a resident of Boston and a native of New York City.

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Advisory Board

The Rock Center’s Advisory Board is responsible for providing strategic direction for the Rock Center and its staff. The Advisory Board includes HBS entrepreneurial alumni, HBS faculty, and HBS staff.

Paul Baier (MBA 1994), Authoria

Paul A. Baier (MBA 1994) has been involved or started a number of entrepreneurial ventures. While working three days a week at AOL, he bootstrapped Compare.com , which enabled customers to compare prices on everything from PCs to mortgages. Later, He worked for Open Market, an e-commerce software firm, for four years, joining nine months before it went public. He then led Open Market's expansion into business-to-business applications. In 1999, he founded and ran PurchasingCenter.com, a "My Yahoo" portal for industrial purchasing agents who purchase $2-$10 million of factory supplies a year. After the dot-com crash, he renamed the company Excara and switched to selling enterprise software for managing product content. In 2002, he started two nonprofits in response to the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church. He is currently acting VP of Product Strategy for Authoria as he researches and evaluates other start-up opportunities. He graduated from Kenyon College, has one daughter, and lives in Wellesley, MA.

Marla Malcolm Beck (MBA 1998), Bluemercury

Marla Malcolm Beck is the co-founder and CEO of Bluemercury Inc., a high-growth luxury beauty retailer and cosmetics brand developer, founded in 1999 when she was twenty-nine years old. In 2015, Macy’s Inc. (NYSE: M) acquired the company. Ms. Beck also co-founded M-61 Laboratories, makers of M-61 Skincare, the first highly technical, natural cosmeceutical brand and makers of Lune and Aster Cosmetics, a vegan cosmetics line.

Ms. Beck is often invited to share her entrepreneurship, branding, and innovation expertise. Bluemercury’s innovative retailing and human resource model has been the topic of numerous books, including Shopping: Why We Love it and How Retailers Can Create the Ultimate Customer Experience and Be Happy at Work: 100 Women Who Love Their Jobs and Why.

She has appeared as a guest on CNBC, CNN and Fox Business News and has been a guest speaker for WWD’s Beauty Innovation Forum, Harvard University’s Luxury Branding Speaker Series and Columbia University’s Lang Center for Entrepreneurship’s Distinguished Speaker Series. In 2014, Ms. Beck received an appointment by Harvard Business School as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence and was named as one of Goldman Sachs’ 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs. Ms. Beck was Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year in 2005.

Prior to founding Bluemercury, she was a consultant at McKinsey & Company. She holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, an M.P.A. from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and a B.A. in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley. She serves on the Advisory Board of Harvard Business School’s Rock Center for Entrepreneurship, the Board of Directors of the National Retail Federation, the Board of Trustees at the Sidwell Friends School in Washington D.C. the Board of Council for Public Leadership, Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and is an independent director on the Board of Directors of The Children’s Place (NASDAQ:PLCE). She resides in Bethesda, Maryland, with her husband and three children.

Shelby Bonnie (MBA 1990), CNET Networks

Shelby Bonnie, Chairman and CEO of CNET Networks, Inc. (Nasdaq: CNET) has overseen the company's evolution from a start-up in 1992 to its position today as the leading global media company informing and connecting the buyers, users and sellers of technology. One of CNET Networks' first employees and senior executives, with past responsibilities including COO, CFO and Vice Chairman, Bonnie assumed his current role in 2000.

The next year, he directed the company's efforts in introducing the Interactive Messaging Unit (IMU), the online industry's catalyst for going "beyond the banner" and standardizing new ad formats that dramatically enhanced both the user experience and ad performance. His influence in this evolution earned him his current role as Chairman Emeritus of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, where he continues to champion innovation in online advertising.

Bonnie had guided the successful marriage of CNET Networks' authoritative, award-winning content with the power of technology, evolving the company's leading media brands into vibrant online learning environments and marketplaces, including both advertising-supported and fee-based services. Today, CNET Networks' online properties attract more than 66 million Web users each month ranging form C-level executives and IT professionals to technology or consumer electronics enthusiasts and gamers.

Prior to joining CNET Networks, Bonnie was a managing director at Tiger Management, a New York-based investment firm.

Jon Burgstone (MBA 1999), Symbol Capital

Mr. Burgstone is Managing Director of Symbol Capital, a San Francisco-based hedge fund, where he leads the firm's activities in portfolio management and research. Mr. Burgstone also serves as Faculty Chair and Adjunct Professor of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology at the University of California, Berkeley.

Earlier in his career he was co-founder and CEO of SupplierMarket, a leading internet supply chain software provider. SupplierMarket.com was purchased for approximately $1.1B by Ariba, where Mr. Burgstone served as Vice President and co-head of corporate development. He has also worked as a high-tech strategy consultant (semiconductor, telecom, online financial services), and in general management for Ford Motor Company.

He is a trustee of the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, and serves on boards of the Rock Center for Entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School and the University of Illinois College of Engineering. Mr. Burgstone actively supports organizations working to improve education and to promote human rights.

Mr. Burgstone earned a BS in engineering from the University of Illinois, an MS in engineering from the University of Michigan, and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He received the 2006 Distinguished Alumnus Award by the University of Illinois Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering.

Michael Cline (MBA 1985), Accretive Technology Partners

J. Michael Cline is the founding Partner of Accretive Technology Partners, LLC, a private equity firm focused on building market leaders in the business process outsourcing, software, and IT services markets. Mr. Cline had previously spent ten years as General Partner at General Atlantic Partners. While at General Atlantic Mr. Cline co-founded Exult and Xchanging, today's leading business process outsourcing companies. Prior to General Atlantic, he was an associate at McKinsey, a leading global management consulting firm.

Mr. Cline has an MBA from Harvard Business School and obtained his Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell University. He is a Trustee of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and serves on the boards of Manugistics (MANU), Exult (EXLT), Equitant, NewRoads, Fandango and several other leading private technology companies.

Srikant Datar, Harvard Business School

Srikant M. Datar is the Arthur Lowes Dickinson Professor of Business Administration at Harvard University. A graduate with distinction from the University of Bombay, he received gold medals upon graduation from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and the Institute of Cost and Works Accountants of India. A chartered accountant, he holds two master's degrees and a Ph.D. from Stanford University.

Cited by his students as a dedicated and innovative teacher, Datar received the George Leland Bach Award for Excellence in the Classroom at Carnegie Mellon University and the Distinguished Teaching Award at Stanford University. He is a co-author (with Professors Charles T. Horngren and George Foster) of the leading cost accounting textbook,Cost Accounting: A Managerial Emphasis published by Prentice-Hall.

Datar's research interests are in the cost management and management control areas. He has published his research on activity-based management, quality, productivity, time-based competition, new product development, bottleneck management, incentives and performance evaluation in several prestigious journals, including The Accounting Review, Journal of Accounting and Economics, Journal of Accounting Research, Contemporary Accounting Research, and Management Science. He has served on the editorial board of several journals and presented his research to corporate executives and academic audiences in North America, South America, Asia, and Europe.

Datar has worked with many corporations, including General Motors, Mellon Bank, General Chemicals, Solectron, TRW, VISA, AT&T, Boeing, DuPont, Co-operative Bank and British Columbia Telecommunications, on field-based projects in management accounting. He is a member of the American Accounting Association and the Institute of Management Accountants.

Kent Dauten (MBA 1979), Keystone Capital, Inc.

Kent Dauten graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with a BA in Economics from Dartmouth College in 1977 and received his MBA from Harvard Business School in 1979. From 1979 to 1994, Mr. Dauten worked at First Chicago Venture Capital/Madison Dearborn Partners, Inc., serving as Senior Vice President of First Chicago Venture Capital and Co-Founder of Madison Dearborn Partners, Inc. He is currently the Founder and President of Keystone Capital, Inc., a private equity investment advisory firm. Mr. Dauten is also the former CEO and President of HIMSCORP, Inc., a medical records storage and retrieval company that he successfully merged with Iron Mountain in 1997. Mr. Dauten currently serves on the Board of Iron Mountain, as well as Health Management Associates of Naples, Florida.

Mr. Dauten has been active with Lutheran Social Services of Illinois (past board chair), School District #29 (past president), Ascension Church (past president), and the Metropolitan Planning Council (past board nember). He is currently involved with the Northwestern Memorial Foundation (board member), the ELCA Fund for Leaders in Mission (leadership council), the Dartmouth College President's Leadership Council, and the Wake Forest Parents' Council, and is a guest lecturer at various business schools. He and his wife Elizabeth have four children: Jenna - 19, Mandy - 18, Ben - 16, and Kit - 12.

Daphne Dufresne (MBA 1999), RLJ Equity Partners

Daphne Dufresne is a Principal at Weston Presidio Capital, a diversified venture capital firm with over $2.3 billion in assets under management. With offices in San Francisco, Boston and Menlo Park, Weston Presidio has worked side by side with the entrepreneurs behind more than 200 companies. Daphne joined Weston Presidio in 1999, following her selection as a 1999 Kauffman Fellow. She is currently involved with the firm's investments in Hunter Fan, Picarro, @hoc, Insulair and Zoots.

Daphne previously led business development for the online trading platform of Interactive Investor, a London-based financial advisory site. She also spent a summer on Wall Street working for Merrill Lynch in its Financial Institutions M&A group. She began her investment career as an Associate Director in Bank of Scotland's Structured Finance Group, focusing on management buyouts in the United Kingdom and France. Prior to that, Daphne served as an Associate in Accenture's (formerly Andersen Consulting) Strategic Services Group, specializing in business and technology strategy for Fortune 500 companies.

Daphne is very active in the Boston community. She was recently appointed to the Board of Trustees of the Economic Stabilization Trust by Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. The Trust provides direct loans and guarantees to manufacturing businesses. She is a member of the Board of Directors of Big Brother Association of Massachusetts Bay, a mentor to a Robert A. Toigo Fellow, a member of the Brigham and Women's Hospital Leadership Forum, and a member of the Steering Committee for New England Springboard Enterprises. Daphne is a frequent guest lecturer at Harvard Business School and has judged the Harvard Business Plan competition for the last four years.

Daphne earned her BS in Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and her MBA from Harvard Business School.

Paul Edgerley (MBA 1983), Bain Capital, Inc.

Paul Edgerley joined Bain Capital in 1988 and has been a Managing Director since 1990. Prior to joining Bain Capital, Edgerley spent five years at Bain & Company where he worked as a consultant and manager in the healthcare, information services, retail and automobile industries. Previously, Edgerley, a certified public accountant, worked at Peat Marwick, Mitchell & Company. Edgerley received an MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School and a BS from Kansas State University. He and his wife, Sandra, reside in Brookline with their four children.

Thomas Eisenmann (MBA 1983), Harvard Business School.

Thomas Eisenmann is the Howard H. Stevenson Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School and Faculty Co-Chair of the HBS Rock Center for Entrepreneurship . He studies the management of new ventures. Eisenmann teaches an MBA elective course, Product Management 101 , in which students specify and supervise development of a software application. In recent years, Eisenmann has served as Chair of Harvard's MBA Elective Curriculum—the second year of the MBA Program—and as course head of The Entrepreneurial Manager, taught to all 900 first-year MBA students. He twice co-led a Harvard Innovation Lab course, Cultural Entrepreneurship in New York City , in which students from across Harvard spent a winter break week in New York exploring new ventures in fashion, food, and fine arts, and co-led four similar winter break trips to Silicon Valley . Eisenmann also created the MBA electives Launching Technology Ventures , which examines challenges that entrepreneurs encounter when starting and scaling new information technology businesses, and Managing Networked Business (now called The Online Economy ), which surveys strategies for platform-based businesses that leverage network effects.

Professor Eisenmann received his Doctorate in Business Administration ('98), MBA ('83), and BA ('79) from Harvard University. Prior to entering the HBS Doctoral Program, Eisenmann spent eleven years as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company, where he was co-head of the Media and Entertainment Practice. Eisenmann is on the editorial board of Strategic Management Journal . He currently serves as a director on the boards of Harvard Business Publishing and Harvard Student Agencies , the world’s largest student-run corporation.

Blogs: Platforms & Networks , Launching Tech Ventures (course blog with student posts)

Shikhar Ghosh (MBA 1980), Harvard Business School

Shikhar Ghosh is the Mel Tukman Faculty Fellow, Senior Lecturer in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit. He teaches and co-leads The Entrepreneurial Manager (TEM) in the MBA program. Shikhar has been a successful entrepreneur for the last 20 years. He has been the founder and CEO or Chairman of eight technology-based entrepreneurial companies and was the past Chairman of the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council (MTLC) and The Indus Entrepreneurs (TIE) - two leading entrepreneurial organizations. He was selected by Business Week as one of the best Entrepreneurs in the US, by Forbes as one of the ‘Masters of the Internet Universe’ and by Fortune as the CEO of one of the 10 most innovative companies in the US. Companies he founded were selected as both the ‘hottest’ and ‘coolest’ emerging companies by business publications.

Shikhar joined the Boston Consulting Group after getting his MBA from HBS in 1980. At BCG he focused on organization and innovation in large organizations. He was elected a worldwide partner of the firm in 1987. Shikhar left BCG in 1988 to become CEO of Appex, an early-stage venture backed company that built the inter-carrier infrastructure for the US mobile phone industry. Appex provided centralized services that enabled independent mobile carriers to operate as a single seamless network. Appex’s services included call forwarding across carriers, fraud prevention services, billing and customer service. Appex was bought by EDS in 1990. By the time Shikhar left in 1993, Appex’s revenues exceeded $100 million with an order backlog of over $1 billion. It was selected by Business week as the fastest growing private company in the US.

Shikhar founded Open Market in 1993. Open Market was one of the pioneering companies in the commercialization of the Internet. It built the first commercial infrastructure for enabling secure commerce on the Internet and provided the software and services that enabled companies like Time Warner and AT&T to offer their services on the Internet. Open Market was one of the first Internet companies to go public. It was selected by numerous business publications as one of the companies that helped to make the Internet what it is today.

After leaving Open Market Shikhar has been the founder, CEO or Chairman of several companies in the wireless, payment, Internet marketing, and on-line retailing industries. He has worked in all facets of the entrepreneurial process – starting companies with technical teams, providing and raising capital with venture capitalists, buying and selling companies, or taking them public and closing down unsuccessful companies. He has been a keynote speaker in numerous conferences on innovation, entrepreneurship, digital media and on the future of the Internet.

Andrew Goldfarb (MBA 1993), Globespan Capital Partners

Andy is Executive Managing Director of Globespan Capital Partners and is based in the firm's Boston office. He serves or has served on the boards of Ocular Networks (acquired by Tellabs), Silknet (NASDAQ: SILK), edocs, Idiom Technologies , Incipient , Silicon Dimensions, and Virtusa . Andy has also led investments in Aptis Communications (acquired by Nortel Networks), Argon (acquired by Siemens), Cerulean Technology (acquired by Aether), Net Perceptions (NASDAQ: NETP) and Pirus Networks (acquired by Sun Microsystems).

Prior to Globespan, Andy was Senior Managing Director of JAFCO Ventures, where he established the Boston office in 1997. Previously, Andy directed Trans National Group's venture investing. Andy negotiated TN's investment in Infoseek (NASDAQ SEEK) and Interzine (acquired by TimesMirror). He also negotiated TN's investment in the consolidation of ProMark Teleservices and S&P Data to form International Data Response Corporation (acquired by Telespectrum; NASDAQ TLSP).

Prior to founding TN Ventures, Andy managed new business development activities and served on the Executive Committee for TN. Andy was integral in the sale to MBNA of a major operating division, TNFS, one of the largest credit card origination companies in the United States.

Earlier, Andy worked in the Corporate Development Department at Kikkoman Corporation's Tokyo headquarters for four years. There, he was primarily responsible for identifying new business opportunities in the Japanese market and was involved in the expansion and development of Kikkoman's health club business. Andy has also worked at Booz-Allen & Hamilton in the Marketing Intensive Group and at OPTA Food Ingredients. Andy received an AB in East Asian Studies and Economics, magna cum laude, from Harvard College and received an MBA, with Distinction, from Harvard Business School . Andy serves on the Board of the Institute of Contemporary Art as well as on the fundraising and admissions committees of Harvard College. Andy is also fluent in Japanese.

Todd Krasnow (MBA 1983), Orchid Partners

Todd Krasnow graduated from Harvard Business School in 1983. Following three years at the Star Market division of Jewel Companies, Todd joined Staples before it opened the first office superstore in the country, as part of the original management team. In twelve years at Staples, Todd had a variety of responsibilities. He created the company's first catalog, and later ran that business as a $500 million operation. In 1992, Todd helped launch, and then ran, Staples' international ventures. Several years later, he became executive vice president of sales and marketing. Todd identified and negotiated the naming rights for the Staples Center in Los Angeles, and won a gold "Clio" award for the best retail advertising in the U.S. Under his sales leadership, the multi-billion dollar retailer enjoyed four years of double digit comparable store and delivery sales growth.

In 1998, Todd left Staples to co-found dry cleaner Zoots with Staples founder, Tom Stemberg (who remained Staples C.E.O.). Todd was C.E.O. of Zoots for five years, building the company to over fifty stores in the Northeast. Zoots is credited with introducing a number of innovative concepts to the dry cleaning industry, including 24-hour-a-day accessibility and dry cleaning on line.

Recently, Todd hired a new C.E.O. at Zoots and became chairman of the company. He then started Orchid Partners with four other entrepreneurs. Orchid Partners is a venture capital firm focusing on early stage, New England- based, technology, communications, software and consumer product companies.

Todd earned a BA in chemistry in 1979 from Cornell University. He holds several patents for his work as a chemist at General Foods in the early 1980s. He has served on the board of the Newton Schools Foundation and the Newton high school task force. Todd is married and has three children.

Joseph Lassiter, Harvard Business School

Joe teaches Entrepreneurial Finance and Innovation in Business, Energy and Environment in the MBA Program as well as courses in the Executive Education Program. He is Faculty Chair of the University-wide Harvard Innovation Lab. His academic and professional work focuses on high-potential ventures, including both those formed as new companies and those formed within existing organizations.

From 1994 to 1996, Joe was President of Wildfire Communications, a telecommunications software venture backed by Matrix Partners and Greylock Management. From 1977 to 1994, Joe was a Vice President of Teradyne (NYSE/ automatic test equipment) and a member of its Management Committee. Joe joined Teradyne in 1974 as a Product Manager while on sabbatical from MIT. As a general manager, he was responsible for organizations ranging from start-ups to international, multi-plant businesses. As an individual contributor, he was best known for his work on product development/ sales management problems and on the application of TQM methods to business planning and control.

Joe began his career at MIT's Department of Ocean Engineering as an Instructor in 1970 and was promoted to Assistant Professor in 1972. He developed and taught a course on marine mineral resource economics. He lectured in hydrodynamics, marine transportation, and computer simulation modeling. In a joint program with Harvard Law School, he lectured on marine legal / regulatory policy. His research focused on forecasting economic and environmental consequences of offshore oil and gas development. He was appointed to the MIT-led National Academy of Engineering study on the future of engineering education. Joe received his BS, MS, and PhD from MIT and was awarded National Science, Adams and McDermott Fellowships. He was elected to Sigma Xi.

Josh Lerner, Harvard Business School

Josh Lerner is the Jacob H. Schiff Professor of Investment Banking at Harvard Business School, and head of the Entrepreneurial Management unit. He graduated from Yale College with a special divisional major that combined physics with the history of technology. He worked for several years on issues concerning technological innovation and public policy at the Brookings Institution, for a public-private task force in Chicago, and on Capitol Hill. He then earned a Ph.D. from Harvard's Economics Department.

Much of his research focuses on venture capital and private equity organizations.  (This research is collected in three books, The Venture Capital Cycle , The Money of Invention , and Boulevard of Broken Dreams. )  He also examines policies on innovation and how they impact firm strategies.  (That research is discussed in the books Innovation and Its Discontents , The Comingled Code , and the Architecture of Innovation. )  He co-directs the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Productivity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship Program and serves as co-editor of their publication, Innovation Policy and the Economy . He founded and runs the Private Capital Research Institute, a nonprofit devoted to encouraging access to data and research about venture capital and private equity, and serves as vice-chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on the Future of Investing.

In the 1993-1994 academic year, he introduced an elective course for second-year MBAs.  Over the past two decades, “Venture Capital and Private Equity” has consistently been one of the largest elective courses at Harvard Business School.  (The course materials are collected in Venture Capital and Private Equity: A Casebook , now in its fifth edition, and the textbook Venture Capital, Private Equity, and the Financing of Entrepreneurship .)  He also teaches a doctoral course on entrepreneurship and chairs the Owners-Presidents-Managers Program and executive courses on private equity. 

Among other recognitions, he is the winner of the Swedish government’s Global Entrepreneurship Research Award.  He has recently been named one of the 100 most influential people in private equity over the past decade by Private Equity International magazine and one of the ten most influential academics in the institutional investing world by Asset International's Chief Investment Officer magazine. He currently serves as Vice Chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on the Future of Investing.

Dan Levitan (MBA 1983), Maveron, LLC

Dan Levitan and his partner Howard Schultz co-founded Maveron in 1998. Levitan and Schultz, who shared the same philosophies about what makes a great company and powerful consumer brand, wanted to bring to fruition their shared values and vision for a different kind of venture capital firm. Within six months Levitan raised $75 million, eventually creating the largest venture capital fund in the state of Washington, now totaling more than $400 million under management. Maveron's mission is to become the premier financial and strategic partner to the great consumer brands of the future.

Prior to his role as Managing Partner at Maveron, Levitan was a managing director at Schroder Wertheim & Co., a leading investment banking firm in New York. At Schroder's, Levitan headed consumer investment banking, new business development and founded the West Coast investment banking division. Levitan serves on the board of directors of The Motley Fool, drugstore.com, Quellos Group, Potbelly Sandwich Works, and Cranium, and has acted as a consultant to numerous private, public and philanthropic organizations, including Duke University's Trinity College of Arts & Sciences Board of Visitors and Pilchuck Glass School. Levitan is a graduate of Horace Mann School, Duke University, and Harvard Business School. Levitan's personal interests include fine art, Duke basketball, and mountain climbing. In 1997, he climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, and in 2000 ascended Mount Rainier for the second time.

Carl Martignetti (MBA 1985), Martignetti Companies

Carl is President and Co-owner of Martignetti Companies, the leading distributor of wines and spirits in New England. He is co-chairman of the Harvard College Fund, past chairman of the Harvard Associates Program, and a member of the Harvard Committee on University Resources. He is a Trustee of the Belmont Hill School and of the Boston Lyric Opera, a Director of the American Repertory Theatre, a member of the Executive Council of the Inner City Scholarship Fund, and a member of the President's Advisory Board of the Massachusetts General Hospital. Carl received his BA from Harvard College and his MBA from Harvard Business School.

Terry McGuire (MBA 1985), Polaris Ventures

Terry McGuire is a co-founder and general partner of Polaris Partners, where he focuses on life sciences investments. Terry has co-founded Inspire Pharmaceuticals, Advanced Inhalation Research, and MicroCHIPS. He represents Polaris on the boards of directors of Acceleron Pharma, Adimab/Arsanis/Alector, Aero Designs, 480 Medical/Arsenal Medical, Editas, Iora Health, Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, Life Line Screening, MicroCHIPS, Nextcode, Pulmatrix, SustainX, and Trevena.

Terry is Chairman Emeritus of the National Venture Capital Association, and Chairman of the Global Venture Capital Congress. He chairs the Board of Overseers of the Thayer School of Engineering, Dartmouth College, and serves on the boards of MIT's The David Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, The Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship, Harvard Business School, and The Healthcare Initiative Advisory Board (HBS).

Terry received a MBA from Harvard Business School, a MS in engineering from The Thayer School at Dartmouth College, and a BS in physics and economics from Hobart College.

In 2013, Terry was listed as one of Forbes' Top Life Sciences Investors, and he received The Boston Irish Business Award. In 2011, Terry was listed in Forbes' Midas 100 List of Top Tech Investors. He is also a recipient of the Massachusetts Society for Medical Research Award, and the Albert Einstein Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Life Sciences, awarded by Harvard and the City of Jerusalem. He was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Laws degree from Ohio Wesleyan University for his work in translational science.

Christopher McKown (MBA 1981), Health Dialog Services Corporation

Mr. McKown is president and co-founder of Health Dialog Services Corporation, a leader in providing evidence-based medical information and decision support to patients facing treatment decisions and living with chronic conditions.

Prior to Health Dialog, Mr. McKown was the founder (1987) and president of Response International Services Corporation, a niche insurance direct marketing company sold to Providian in 1994. Mr. McKown was a principal in Booz, Allen & Hamilton in New York from 1981 to 1987. Mr. McKown is a director of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Boston; a director of the Pine Street Inn; an overseer of WGBH; co-chair of the Director's Advisory Committee at the Arnold Arboretum; and treasurer of the Friends of the Boston Night Center.

He received his MBA from Harvard Business School in 1981, and a BS from Penn State in 1977. He lives with his wife and their two daughters in Milton, MA.

Glen Meakem (MBA 1991), Meakem Becker Venture Partners

Glen T. Meakem is a Co-Founder and Managing Director of Meakem Becker Venture Capital, a venture capital firm located near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania that is focused on the eastern and Midwestern United States and invests in and helps to build early-stage companies in the information technology, biomedical, and service industries.

Prior to entering the venture capital industry in 2004, Mr. Meakem was the founding Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of FreeMarkets, Inc. Mr. Meakem founded the company in 1995. During its history, FreeMarkets first created the market for internet deployed supply management software and services and then went public in 1999 in a record setting IPO. Later, the company expanded dramatically across the globe, achieving over $US 180 million in annual revenues and tens of millions of dollars in positive cash flow. Mr. Meakem and his team sold the company to Ariba (NASDAQ: ARBA) for $US 500 million in 2004.

A trailblazer in electronic commerce, Mr. Meakem was named one of 40 technology pioneers by the World Economic Forum in 2003, and holds eight United States patents for electronic commerce inventions. FreeMarkets and Mr. Meakem were profiled in a widely taught Harvard Business School case study.

A leader in Pennsylvania, Mr. Meakem is a member of the Board of Trustees of Carnegie Mellon University, and is a former Chairman of the Board of the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania - Heinz History Center. He is a member of the Boards of Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield, The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, The Urban League of Pittsburgh, Sewickley Academy, and the Extra Mile Education Foundation. He also sits on the advisory committee of Imani Christian Academy, an inner-city private school. Mr. Meakem has won numerous awards including the Anti-Defamation League's National American Heritage Award, Ernst &Young's Entrepreneur of the Year Award for Western Pennsylvania, Syracuse University's Salzberg Medallion for Exceptional Business Achievement, the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts Cultural Award, and Junior Achievement's Spirit of Enterprise Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

Early in his career, Mr. Meakem held professional and managerial positions with General Electric, McKinsey &Company, and Kraft-General Foods. A former officer in the United States Army Reserve where he achieved the rank of Captain, Mr. Meakem also volunteered for and served in the 1991 Gulf War. Mr. Meakem holds a B.A. cum laude from Harvard University, an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, and an Honorary Doctorate in Business Administration from Robert Morris University.

Mr. Meakem is married with five children.

Mick Mountz (MBA 1996) Kiva Systems

Mick founded Kiva Systems in January 2003 after spending time in high tech product development, manufacturing, operations, and marketing. With a unique blend of warehouse management expertise and technology insight, Mick is the chief architect of Kiva's game-changing product vision. Prior to Kiva, Mick worked on a business process team at Webvan designing a next generation distribution strategy for grocery home delivery, during which he experienced first-hand the high cost of order fulfillment and the inflexibility of existing material handling systems.

Prior to joining Webvan, Mick spent three years in product marketing at Apple Computer as a Product Manager where he helped move many new technologies into the standard desktop platform including FireWire, DVD, Fast Ethernet, and 3D graphics acceleration. He began his career at Motorola, where he worked as both a Mechanical and a Manufacturing Engineer. In 2008 Mick was a winner of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year Award in the New England region. In 2009, under Mick's leadership, Kiva was ranked number six on the Inc. 500 list of the fastest growing companies in America, and Gartner named Kiva one of its "Cool Vendors in Supply Chain Management." Mick holds seven United States technology patents. He earned a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a MBA from Harvard Business School.

Gary Mueller (MBA 1994), Internet Securities

Gary Mueller is Chairman of Internet Securities Incorporated (ISI), an online provider of financial and business information on the emerging markets. Gary founded ISI in 1994 and has led the company ever since. ISI currently has 250 employees in 19 countries and its subscription-based service covers over 50 emerging markets, including Brazil, Mexico, Russia, China, and India. In 1999 Euromoney Institutional Investor, a FTSE 250 company, purchased ISI. In June 2000 Gary was appointed to Euromoney Institutional Investor's Board of Directors. He is a graduate of Harvard College (1988) and Harvard Business School (1994).

Venkatesh Narayanamurti, Harvard University

Venkatesh ("Venky") Narayanamurti is Dean of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the John A. and Elizabeth S. Armstrong Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University. He is also the Dean of Physical Sciences and a professor in the Harvard Physics Department. From January 1992 to September 1998 he served as the Richard A. Auhll Professor and Dean of Engineering, as well as Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering, at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He was Vice President of Research and Exploratory Technology at Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM, from May 1987 to January 1992. He obtained his PhD in Physics from Cornell University in 1965. He joined Bell Laboratories in 1968 as a member of technical staff, and became Director of Solid State Electronics Research in 1981. He has published widely in the areas of low temperature physics, superconductivity, semiconductor electronics and photonics. He is credited with developing the field of phonon optics—the manipulation of monoenergetic acoustic beams at terahertz frequencies. He is currently very active in the field of semiconductor nanostructures.

Narayanamurti is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences. He is also a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the IEEE, the Indian Academy of Sciences, and Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society. Over the years he has served on numerous advisory boards of the federal government, research universities, and industry. Most recently he has served as Chair of the Directorate of Engineering Advisory Board, NSF (1995-1996), Chair of the National Research Council Panel on the Future of Condensed Matter and Materials Physics (1996-1999), and Chair of the Committee of Visitors for the Division of Materials Research, NSF (2002). Currently he is a member of the Advisory Board for the University of California's Miller Institute for Basic Science and a member of the Dean's Leadership Councils of Princeton and Cornell Universities. In addition to his duties as Dean and Professor, Narayanamurti lectures widely on solid state, computer, and communication technologies, and on the management of science, technology, and public policy.

Steven Papa (MBA 1999), Endeca

Steve Papa founded Endeca in 1999 after recognizing that in this age of overwhelming information overload, information access methods available for people to find what they are looking for or get answers are ineffective and inefficient. Endeca is located in Cambridge MA, has over 100 employees, and is backed by Venrock, Bessemer, and Ampersand ventures. With Steve's guiding vision, Endeca's information access technology, with seven patents pending, now addresses a wide range of information challenges across a variety of industries and in the public sector. Today, Endeca is a growing and thriving software company with customers such as the CIA, Harvard Business School Publishing, IBM, ABN Amro, Old Mutual, Putnam Investments, The Library of Congress, Forrester Research, Barnes & Noble and many others. Despite the difficult technology market, Endeca has received numerous accolades such as Enterprise Outlook's 2003 Investor's Choice Award (one of ten software companies nationwide most likely to succeed) and ComputerWorld's Innovative Technology Award (one of twenty-five annually).

Prior to Endeca, Steve was part of the early team at Inktomi where he was the business lead in charge of creating the company's infrastructure caching business, which grew to make up 60 percent of Inktomi's revenues prior to their acquisition by Yahoo!. He was also part of the original business team at Akamai. In addition, Steve was a venture capital associate with Venrock Associates, the venture capital arm of the Rockefeller family, and was responsible for managing AT&T's $500 million high-end enterprise computing system product line.

Steve holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BS in Operations Research from Princeton University.

Mike Roberts (MBA 1983), Harvard Business School

Michael J. Roberts recently retired as the MBA Class of 1961 Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School. He spent 25 years on the HBS faculty, serving for the last 16 years as the Executive Director of the Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship. In this capacity, he directed the School’s non-classroom activities in support of entrepreneurship, including the HBS Business Plan Contest, fellowship programs, Entrepreneur in Residence program, and the California Research Center in Silicon Valley. Dr. Roberts has also served as Executive Director, Case Development at the School. In this role, he oversaw many aspects of the School’s case development activities. While at HBS, he also taught the second-year elective course “Evaluating the Entrepreneurial Opportunity” for students who were actively working to transform an idea into a real business. He also taught the School’s first-year required courses in entrepreneurship and business history.

Dr. Roberts has worked in a variety of private sector roles. Prior to and during business school, he worked for McKinsey & Co. and Morgan Stanley, respectively. From 1989 to 1991, he served as Director of International Business Development for Cellular Communications, Inc. where he led a successful effort to acquire the second cellular license in Italy. He has also served as Chief Financial Officer of a start-up chain of quick service Italian restaurants, and as Vice President of Business Development for a company in the health care services field.

Dr. Roberts received his BA, cum laude, from Harvard College in economics in 1979. He was awarded his MBA, with high distinction, from Harvard Business School in 1983. He completed his formal studies in 1986 when he received his doctorate, as a Dean's Fellow, in Business Administration from Harvard Business School. He is the author of over 150 case studies on starting and managing entrepreneurial companies. He co-authored New Business Ventures and the Entrepreneur, a textbook that is used at over 100 graduate business schools. He is also a co-author of The Entrepreneurial Venture and of a legal text, Business Structures.

Dr. Roberts serves on the boards of several private companies.

Phone: 617-767-4556

Email:[email protected]

Javier Saade (MBA 2000), Fenway Summer Ventures

Javier is Managing Director of Fenway Summer Ventures. FSV invests and supports pioneers tackling challenges at the intersection of finance and technology and makes early stage investments. Javier recently served as SBA's Associate Administrator and oversaw the Small Business Investment Company (SBIC), Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR), Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR), and the Growth Accelerator Fund programs. Since inception, the programs he led have invested $120 billion in over 320,000 high-growth startups and businesses. Prior to public service he spent 20 years in various investment, entrepreneurial, operational and advisory roles at firms that include McKinsey & Company, Booz Allen & Hamilton, Bridgewater Associates, The GEM Group, Paradigm Ventures, Pacific Community Ventures, Air America Media and Abbott Laboratories.

Bill Sahlman (MBA 1975), Harvard Business School

William Sahlman is the Dimitri V. d'Arbeloff Class of 1955 Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. The d'Arbeloff Chair was established in 1986 to support teaching and research on the entrepreneurial process. The Chair honors the late Dimitri d'Arbeloff (HBS '55), whose entrepreneurial skills helped make Millipore Corporation a world leader in its industry.

Mr. Sahlman received an AB degree in Economics from Princeton University, an MBA from Harvard Business School, and a PhD in Business Economics, also from Harvard.

His research focuses on the investment and financing decisions made in entrepreneurial ventures at all stages in their development.

Mr. Sahlman's most recent article, "Expensing Options Solves Nothing" (Harvard Business Review, December 2002), discusses proposals to require a charge to income for the estimated value of stock option grants. He notes that we already disclose detailed information on stock options and that the proposed charges do little to add information to the income statement. Moreover, there are far more serious issues in accounting and governance that warrant attention including the level and structure of executive compensation, other liability and asset accounting practices, and the role of the board of directors.

In "The New Economy is Stronger Than You Think" (Harvard Business Review , November/December 1999), Mr. Sahlman describes the positive role of entrepreneurship in the economy. He emphasizes the impact of enabling technologies like the Internet on critical factors like inflation and productivity.

In "How to Write a Great Business Plan" (Harvard Business Review , July/August 1997), Mr. Sahlman describes the appropriate role of the business plan in new venture formation, whether in a new company or within an existing enterprise. The article emphasizes the role of people in making businesses succeed.

In 1985, Mr. Sahlman introduced a new second-year elective course called Entrepreneurial Finance. That course has been taken by over 8,000 students since it was first offered. Mr. Sahlman and an HBS co-author, Paul Gompers, published a casebook in 2002 entitled Entrepreneurial Finance (Wiley). In 2000, he helped introduce and teach a new course in the first year called The Entrepreneurial Manager.

Mr. Sahlman was co-chair of the Entrepreneurship and Service Management Unit from 1999 to 2002. From 1991 to 1999, he was Senior Associate Dean, Director of Publishing Activities, and chairman of the board for Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation. From 1990 to 1991, he was chairman of the Harvard University Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility. He is a member of the board of directors of several private companies.

Angelo Santinelli (MBA 1989), North Bridge Venture Partners

Angelo Santinelli joined North Bridge Venture Partners as a Principal and became a General Partner in the firm's fourth and fifth fund. Prior to joining North Bridge, Angelo was with Shiva Corporation, a leading provider of remote access networking products, where he served as Senior Vice President Worldwide Marketing and Business Development. At Shiva he was responsible for building and managing the product management, product marketing, marketing communications, knowledge management and Web groups. Prior to Shiva he was with the Boston Consulting Group where he participated in the high-tech practice group. Angelo also spent several years in sales with International Business Machines. Mr. Santinelli's venture investing is targeted at the communications and Internet infrastructure industries.

Angelo is a senior lecturer at MIT's Sloan School of Management. He is a graduate of Fordham University, 1984 and Harvard Business School, 1989.

Asif Satchu (MBA 1999), Chronos Capital

Mr. Satchu is a founding Partner of AMV Capital, a distribution rights investment fund. He is also a co-founder of StorageNow, one of Canada's leading self-storage companies. Mr. Satchu was previously Chairman of SupplierMarket, a leading supply chain management company. Prior to co-founding SupplierMarket, Mr. Satchu worked at Tiger Management Company and Morgan Stanley. Mr. Satchu received a bachelor's degree from McGill University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Robert Smith (MBA 1985), Castanea Partners

Robert A. Smith is currently Vice Chairman of Neiman Marcus Group, Inc. and Managing Partner of Castanea Partners, Inc. Mr. Smith is the former Co-Chief Executive Officer of both Harcourt General, a diversified publishing concern, and Co-Chief Executive Officer of The Neiman Marcus Group.

Mr. Smith serves on numerous community boards, including the Children's Hospital, Boston, Facing History and Ourselves, Harvard Committee on University Resources, and the Pan-Massachusetts Challenge. and is an overseer at the Beth Israel/Deaconess Medical Center. He is a Trustee of the Richard and Susan Smith Family Foundation, and the Stoneman Family Foundation.

He received his degrees from Harvard, AB 1981, and MBA, 1985. Mr. Smith and his wife, Dana, have three children.

Howard Stevenson (MBA 1965), Harvard Business School

Howard H. Stevenson is Sarofim-Rock Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. The Sarofim-Rock Chair was established in 1982 to provide a continuing base for research and teaching in the field of entrepreneurship. Dr. Stevenson is its first incumbent. The program for entrepreneurial studies uses a multi-disciplinary approach to the creation and maintenance of entrepreneurial focus of business organizations. He is a Senior Associate Dean and Director of External Relations. From 1999 to 2001 he served as Chair of the Latin American Faculty Advisory Group. He also served as Senior Associate Dean and Director of Financial and Information Systems for Harvard Business School from 1991 to 1994. He has been chairperson of the Owner/President Manager Program in executive education and of the Publications Review Board for Harvard Business School Press of Harvard Business School Publishing Company.

He was a founder and first president of the Baupost Group, Inc. which manages partnerships investing in liquid securities for wealthy families. When he resigned from active management, Baupost assets had grown to over $400 million. He is now co-chairman of the Advisory Board of Baupost LLC, a registered investment company. From 1978 to 1982, Professor Stevenson was Vice President of Finance and Administration and a Director of Preco Corporation, a large privately-held manufacturing company. In addition, in 1970-71, he served as Vice President of Simmons Associates, a small investment banking firm specializing in venture financing.

Prior to 1978, he held various academic appointments at Harvard University, specializing in Real Property Asset Management and General Management. He received his BS in mathematics, with distinction, from Stanford and his MBA, with high distinction, and DBA degrees from Harvard University. He was a Thomas Watson National Merit Scholar and a recipient of the ALCOA and Ford Foundation Fellowships for graduate study.

He has authored, edited or co-authored six books and forty-one articles including New Business Ventures and the Entrepreneur, with Michael J. Roberts and H. Irving Grousbeck; Policy Formulation and Administration, with C.R. Christensen, N. Berg and M. Salter; The Entrepreneurial Venture, with William Sahlman. "The Importance of Entrepreneurship" and "Capital Market Myopia," with William Sahlman; "A Perspective on Entrepreneurship," and"'Preserving Entrepreneurship As You Grow," "The Heart of Entrepreneurship," "How Small Companies Should Deal with Advisers," and "Why Be Honest If Honesty Doesn't Pay" have appeared in Harvard Business Review. Other scholarly papers of his have appeared in Sloan Management Review, Real Estate Review,Journal of Business Venturing, Journal of Business Strategy, Strategic Management Journal and elsewhere. He has also authored, co-authored or supervised over 150 cases at Harvard Business School. He is the author of Do Lunch or Be Lunch: The Power of Predictability in Creating Your Future, published by HBS Press. His latest book, co-authored with David Amis, is Winning Angels: The Seven Fundamentals of Early Stage Investing.

He is currently a director of Camp Dresser & McKee and Landmark Communications, as well as a trustee for several private trusts and foundations. He is a director of Sudbury Valley Trustees where he served as president from 1996 to 2000. He is a trustee of the Boston Ballet and a member of the Harvard Club of New York City.

Phil Terry (MBA 1998), Collaborative Gain, Inc.

Phil Terry, CEO of Collaborative Gain, Inc., runs The Councils, a collaborative network of senior leaders, and until early 2014, Phil was also the CEO of Creative Good, a pioneering consulting firm focused on customer experience and strategy. Phil also co-authored "Customers Included", the book widely praised by CEOs, venture capitalists and entrepreneurs for its practical and passionate focus on building better businesses.

With the Councils, Phil has developed a community of hundreds of senior leaders who help each other run better, more customer-inclusive companies. Member companies range from American Express to Walmart, from startups like Squarespace to industry leaders like Google. Phil and his extended team run numerous councils including Product Councils, General Management Councils, CEO Councils, CMO Councils and others. Phil has also written about the power of asking for help as a key leadership discipline in the Harvard Business Review. As noted, Phil until recently ran the Creative Good consulting operation - including designing the methodology, recruiting and managing the team and overseeing more than 400 project across many industries.

Phil has given more than 150 keynote speeches at events like the Harvard Business School Distinguished Speaker Series, National Retail Federation, Forbes, Inc. , and for private corporations such as American Express, eBay, Fidelity, Intuit, Walmart, and many others. He's been profiled and quoted extensively in publications like the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times and named by Fast Company as one of the Fast Company 100 - 100 leaders shaping the 21st century.

Phil is a member of the Young Presidents' Organization (YPO) and holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School, where he was also awarded the Dean's Award. Phil is on the advisory board of the Harvard Business School Rock Center for Entrepreneurship, the University of Southern California's Engineering School's Innovation Institute and the high-growth startup, Stella Service. Phil began his career at Moody's Investors Service and McKinsey & Co.

In his spare time he founded and runs two innovative nonprofits that are changing the customer experience for art and literature - Slow Art Day and Reading Odyssey. He lives with his wife in Brooklyn.

Rob Wadsworth (MBA 1986), Harbour Vest Partners

Mr. Wadsworth has been a founding Managing Director of HarbourVest Partners, LLC since its creation in 1997. HarbourVest Partners is a global private equity firm managing over $15 billion in committed capital for institutional limited partners. HarbourVest's business activities include investing as a primary and secondary investor in venture capital, leveraged buyout and mezzanine funds, as well as investing as a direct investor in venture capital and buyout transactions worldwide.

Prior to HarbourVest, Mr. Wadsworth was a general partner at Hancock Venture Partners from 1988 to 1997. Hancock Venture Partners was the predecessor firm to HarbourVest Partners. Previously, Mr. Wadsworth worked for Booz, Allen & Hamilton, where he specialized in the areas of operations strategy and manufacturing productivity. Mr. Wadsworth received his bachelor's degree, magna cum laude, in systems engineering and computer science from the University of Virginia and an MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School. He currently serves on the boards of several domestic and international private companies. Mr. Wadsworth is presently a director of Concord Communications, Inc., ePresence, Network Engines, Inc., Switchboard, Inc., and Trintech Group PLC, all public companies.

Mr. Wadsworth focuses HarbourVest's efforts in direct investing world-wide where the firm has historically invested over $2 billion in venture capital, expansion capital, leveraged buyout, and recapitalization transactions.

Gwill York (MBA 1984), Lighthouse Capital Partners Inc.

Gwill E. York is the Founder and Managing Director of Lighthouse Capital Partners. Ms. York has spent the last twenty years in a variety of positions in the venture capital community, the last fifteen focused exclusively on structured venture capital investing. She directs the firm's East Coast investment activities, and provides oversight of other operational activities for the Lighthouse Funds. Since co-founding Lighthouse, she has led the firm's investments in companies such as Millennium Pharmaceuticals, StorageNetworks, DataSage, Corvis, Triton, Curis, and Sirocco Systems.

Prior to co-founding Lighthouse in June 1994, Ms. York was a Senior Vice President with Comdisco Ventures where she directed and managed East Coast investment activities. She joined Comdisco Ventures in 1988 having been recruited to establish its East Coast presence. During her tenure, Comdisco Ventures successfully launched its national presence and became the market leader in the venture debt industry in both market share and profitability. While at Comdisco, she led its investments in over fifty companies, primarily in the biotechnology and communications equipment areas, including Human Genome Sciences, Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Appex, Brooktrout Technologies, and Cascade Communications.

Prior to joining Comdisco, Ms. York was a Senior Business Analyst for Fidelity Investment Company from 1986 to 1988. From 1984 to 1986, she worked in a medical software start-up, which successfully raised venture capital from four leading venture capital firms. She started her career in 1980 at Salomon Brothers in the corporate finance department.

She holds an AB in economics from Harvard University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. She is on the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees for the Museum of Science in Boston. She has been active on several visiting and alumni/alumnae committees over the years for Harvard University as well as served on the National Council of the Harvard Medical School.

A year long entrepreneurial journey that culminates with a capstone event for students who have worked to develop new ventures while at HBS. All participants present live to top investors and entrepreneurs and receive invaluable feedback at each round of the Competition. $315,000 in cash plus in-kind prizes!

This innovative, immersive, and competitive yearlong program supports 20-25 Rock Summer Fellow teams with up to $1,500 in seed capital, matched mentors, and facilitated workshops as they race to Demo Day where teams pitch their ventures to investors, entrepreneurs, and their classmates.

Rock Center support for entrepreneurs extends far beyond graduation. The Rock 100 initiative brings together high impact alumni entrepreneurs with early-stage traction to connect, learn, and share their ideas and experiences. Join the network to participate in our global Entrepreneurs' Summit, regional Roundtables, and smaller forum groups (Rock Councils). Visit our Showcase to see the HBS entrepreneurs who are currently members of our Rock 100 community.

Rock Summer Fellows enables students to continue to explore their entrepreneurial path, both as founders and as those interested in joining early-stage startups, through a 10-week summer fellowship that provides not only financial support but a peer network and community for students.

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Commencement | 5.22.2024

Harvard Corporation Rules Thirteen Students Cannot Graduate

Faculty of arts and sciences may 20 vote on protestors’ status does not confer “good standing.”.

On Monday, during the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ meeting on students’ eligibility to receive their degrees, members voted that 13 students found by the College’s Administrative Board to have violated University policies during their pro-Palestinian encampment in Harvard Yard should be included on the list of those eligible [ Corrected 4:58 p.m. : a previous version of this story incorrectly said the faculty voted that those students were in “good standing”]. That meant that the faculty voted the students should receive their degrees at the 373 rd Commencement tomorrow—an action, overruling the Administrative Board, that transferred the final decision to the Harvard Corporation. The President and Fellows (the Corporation) are ultimately responsible for conferring degrees.

The Administrative Board ruling spurred new protests by the students’ supporters, including a weekend march to interim president Alan M. Garber’s home, and furious, dueling editorials and op-eds in the Crimson . Advocates of the students cite prior protest encampments, in which the University did not impose similar discipline; their critics cite the violation of Harvard rules on protests, and reports of harassing or intimidating behavior toward others during the encampment.

In a statement released this afternoon, the Corporation said that since the students are not in good standing, they therefore will not receive their degrees at Commencement. That may further fuel possible attempts during the morning exercises to protest both the Israel-Gaza war itself and the University’s response to the encampment and other campus actions. The Corporation’s statement follows:

In accordance with the University statutes, the President and Fellows of Harvard College are responsible for conferring degrees on students who have fulfilled degree requirements and are in good standing.

Degree candidates are recommended to the President and Fellows, collectively known as the Harvard Corporation, by the faculties at Harvard’s schools. On Monday, faculty members who attended a Faculty of Arts and Sciences meeting amended the list of candidates provided by the FAS Registrar, who certifies that students have met the requirements and are in good standing. The faculty amendment added to the list of recommended Harvard College degree recipients thirteen students who are not in good standing.

Each of these students has been found by the College’s Administrative Board — the body established by the FAS faculty to investigate and adjudicate disciplinary matters—to have violated the University’s policies by their conduct during their participation in the recent encampment in Harvard Yard. We respect each faculty’s responsibility to determine appropriate discipline for its students. Monday’s faculty vote did not, however, revisit these disciplinary rulings, did not purport to engage in the individualized assessment of each case that would ordinarily be required to do so, and, most importantly, did not claim to restore the students to good standing.

Today, we have voted to confer 7,782 degrees to students in good standing. Because the students included as the result of Monday’s amendment are not in good standing, we cannot responsibly vote to award them degrees at this time. In coming to this determination, we note that the express provisions of the Harvard College Student Handbook state that students who are not in good standing are not eligible for degrees. We also considered the inequity of exempting a particular group of students who are not in good standing from established rules, while other seniors with similar status for matters unrelated to Monday’s faculty amendment would be unable to graduate.

We understand that the inability to graduate is consequential for students and their families. We fully support the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ stated intention to provide expedited review, at this time, of eligible requests for reconsideration or appeal. We will consider conferral of degrees promptly if, following the completion of all FAS processes, a student becomes eligible to receive a degree.

We care deeply about every member of our community—students, faculty, staff, researchers, and alumni—and we have chosen a path forward that accords with our responsibilities and reaffirms a process for our students to receive prompt and fair review.

—The President and Fellows of Harvard College

Follow Harvard Magazine ’s coverage of this continuing story, and Commencement, at https://www.harvardmagazine.com .

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Six receive honorary degrees.

Honorary degree recipients Jennie Chin Hansen (clockwise from top left), Sylvester James Gate Jr., Lawrence S. Bacow, Joy Harjo-Sapulpa, Gustavo Adolfo Dudamel Ramírez, and Maria Ressa with interim President Alan Garber and interim Provost John Manning.

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Lawrence S. Bacow

Doctor of laws.

President emeritus of Harvard University, Larry Bacow is widely admired for his decades of distinguished leadership in higher education. As Harvard’s 29th president from 2018 to 2023, he worked to advance interdisciplinary initiatives in areas including climate change, quantum science and engineering, the future of cities, natural and artificial intelligence, and the legacy of slavery. He is known for his efforts to expand educational opportunity, to promote international exchange, to encourage public service, and to guide Harvard through the COVID-19 pandemic. A scholar of environmental studies, Bacow served as president of Tufts University from 2001 to 2011, strengthening its commitment to academic excellence, inclusion, and civic engagement. He previously served for 24 years on the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he led centers on environmental initiatives and real estate and rose to become chancellor. He has served as chair of the Association of Governing Boards’ council of presidents, chair of the executive committee of the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities in Massachusetts, a member of the American Council of Education’s executive committee, and a Fellow of Harvard College. His numerous honors include the ACE’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

Gustavo Adolfo Dudamel Ramírez

Doctor of music.

Known for his dynamic musicianship and his devotion to the power of the arts, Gustavo Dudamel is an internationally renowned conductor. Currently the music and artistic director of both the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, he will become the music and artistic director of the New York Philharmonic in 2026. He has conducted major orchestras worldwide, featuring works by composers from Beethoven to Mahler to John Adams, and his discography includes more than 65 recordings. Born in Venezuela, he began violin studies as a child through the celebrated El Sistema program. By his teens he had distinguished himself as a conductor, becoming music director of the Simón Bolívar Youth Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela at 18 and winning the inaugural Gustav Mahler Competition at 23. He is a passionate advocate for music education through his work with Youth Orchestra Los Angeles as well as the Dudamel Foundation. Named one of Time’s most influential people in 2009, he has received such honors as Spain’s Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts, the Konex Foundation Classical Music Award, and the International Society for the Performing Arts’ Distinguished Artist Award.

Sylvester James Gates Jr.

Doctor of science.

Sylvester James (Jim) Gates Jr. is an eminent theoretical physicist known for his contributions to supersymmetry, supergravity, and superstring theory and for his dedication to promoting public understanding of the wonders of science. With two S.B. degrees and a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he is a longtime faculty member at the University of Maryland, where his appointments have included Regents Professor, John S. Toll Professor of Physics, Clark Leadership Chair in Science, and affiliate professor of public policy. He has also served as Ford Foundation Professor of Physics and director of the Theoretical Physics Center at Brown University, as well as chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Howard University. He is past president of both the American Physical Society and the National Society of Black Physicists, and a former member of both the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and the Council of the National Academy of Sciences. He co-authored “Superspace,” a groundbreaking book on supersymmetry, and he has appeared in numerous documentaries about science. His many honors include the American Institute of Physics’ Andrew Gemant Award and the National Medal of Science.

Jennie Chin Hansen

Doctor of humane letters.

Jennie Chin Hansen is an innovative and influential leader in care for older people. Raised in Boston, she received her B.S. at Boston College and her M.S. in nursing at the University of California, San Francisco. She served for more than 25 years as the leader of On Lok, a California nonprofit that pioneered new models of comprehensive community-based care for older adults. Its programs became a prototype for the federal Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE), available to states nationwide. She went on to serve as president of the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), playing a key role in advocating for the Affordable Care Act. She next served as CEO of the American Geriatrics Society, dedicated to the care of older adults. She continues her work on issues important to older Americans, such as dementia, emergency medicine, and health equity. Past president of the American Society on Aging and a former member of the U.S. Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, she has been honored by such organizations as the American Academy of Nursing, the American Society on Aging, the National Council on Aging, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid.

Joy Harjo-Sapulpa

Doctor of literature.

Joy Harjo is an acclaimed poet, educator, author, playwright, and musician. She served as the 23rd U.S. Poet Laureate, only the second Poet Laureate to serve three terms (2019–22). A member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, whose work draws deeply on Native histories and traditions and on themes of remembrance and transcendence, she is the author of 10 books of poetry, including “Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light: 50 Poems for 50 Years.” She has also written several plays and children’s books, and two memoirs. Her many honors include lifetime achievement awards from the National Book Critics Circle and the Poetry Foundation, as well as Yale University’s Bollingen Prize and the Academy of American Poets’ Wallace Stevens Award. She is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and former chair of the board of the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation. She is also an award-winning musician who has released seven albums. A graduate of the University of New Mexico and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she has taught at UNM and several other universities, and she is the inaugural artist-in-residence of the Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Maria A. Ressa

Principal speaker doctor of laws.

Maria Ressa is an intrepid journalist and media innovator known for her fierce commitment to safeguarding freedom of the press and advancing the pursuit of truth. Her many honors include a share of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021 for her efforts to promote free expression, to combat disinformation, and to expose abuses of power in her native country, the Philippines. She is co-founder and CEO of Rappler, a digital news outlet in the Philippines focused on investigative journalism, editorial independence, and building communities of action for a better world. Before launching Rappler online in 2012, she served as chief of CNN’s bureaus in Manila and Jakarta and as senior vice president of multimedia news operations at ABS-CBN, the largest news organization in the Philippines. She is the author of books on terrorism, social media, and defending democracy against authoritarianism. A graduate of Princeton University and a former Shorenstein Fellow and Hauser Leader at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, she will become a professor of professional practice at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs in July 2024. She was named a Time Person of the Year in 2018.

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Harvard Corporation won't give diplomas to 13 students, despite faculty vote

• Carrie Jung

Harvard's highest governing body has spurned a recommendation from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and will decline to confer degrees Thursday to 13 undergraduate seniors facing discipline for taking part in the campus protest over the war in Gaza, according to a statement it issued late Wednesday afternoon.

"Because the students included as the result of Monday's amendment are not in good standing, we cannot responsibly vote to award them degrees at this time," the statement read, citing the "express provisions of the Harvard College Student Handbook" regarding degree eligibility.

The decision comes on the eve of main commencement exercises for Harvard, raising immediate questions about the ceremony and longer-term concerns about the campus environment moving forward.

The decision by the Harvard Corporation was met with immediate rebuke by Kirsten Weld, a history professor and member of the faculty.

"I think this is a damning error on the part of the Corporation," she said Wednesday. "A show of complete disregard for the clearly expressed and legislated will of the faculty and it is going to generate an immense crisis in governance at this university going forward."

The Corporation said in its statement it's conferring a total 1,539 total degrees to students "in good standing" this year.

It added that each of the 13 suspended seniors had been found by the Administrative Board to "have violated the University's policies by their conduct during their participation in the recent encampment in Harvard Yard" and that Monday's vote by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences "did not ... revisit these disciplinary rulings, did not purport to engage in the individualized assessment of each case that would ordinarily be required to do so, and, most importantly, did not claim to restore the students to good standing."

The decision doesn't bar the impacted seniors from receiving a degree down the road but they must follow certain processes and return to good standing.

In a regular meeting Monday, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences voted to reinstate the 13 students to a list of those receiving degrees this year. There were 115 faculty members in attendance, a Harvard spokesman said.

Many faculty have strongly criticized the disciplinary actions imposed by the Administrative Board. At least five students were suspended, and 20 others were placed on probation.

Weld and some of her colleagues argued that Harvard statute gives the faculty body ultimate authority to confer degrees to students.

"For the Corporation to come down and say 'no, we're just following the rules and you need to get back in your lane' — I think a Pandora's box has been opened up here," Weld said. "I think, at the very least, a faculty vote of no confidence in the Harvard Corporation is foreseeable."

A Harvard spokesman offered no further comment on Wednesday.

• Harvard faculty urge college to let disciplined student protesters graduate on time
• Pro-Palestinian encampment ends at Harvard, but organizers say the protest isn't over
• How Mass. colleges responded to student protest encampments

Carrie Jung Senior Reporter, Education Carrie is a senior education reporter.

Suevon Lee Assistant Managing Editor, Education Suevon Lee leads WBUR's education coverage.

More from WBUR

Harvard’s governing board overrules faculty, bars 13 students who participated in pro-Palestinian encampment from receiving degrees

CAMBRIDGE — Harvard University’s top governing board on Wednesday rejected the recommendation of faculty to allow 13 pro-Palestinian students who participated in a three-week encampment in Harvard Yard to receive their degrees with their classmates.

Impacted students will be able to participate in commencement ceremonies Thursday but will not receive diplomas, jeopardizing post-graduation plans.

The announcement came two days after some members of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences voted to grant degrees to the 13 students and as the university prepared for the pomp and circumstance of one of the most important days of the academic year. And it follows a fierce debate on college campuses nationwide over the appropriate sanctions for pro-Palestinian demonstrators who set up encampments to protest the Israel-Hamas war.

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The decision Wednesday shocked faculty who feel strongly that student protesters are being unfairly punished, largely because of political pressure on university leaders.

“I’m upset,” said Ryan Enos, a professor of government. “This was pure hubris by the Corporation. To think a bunch of billionaires that visit Cambridge a couple times a year could tell the professors who educate these students that they know better than them who deserves to earn degrees — the audacity is breathtaking. In my opinion, the Corporation is not worthy of leading the university.”

The Harvard Corporation, in a statement explaining its decision, cited the Harvard College handbook, which says that a “degree will not be granted to a student who is not in good standing or against whom a disciplinary charge is pending with the Administrative Board, the Honor Council, or the disciplinary board of another school.”

The students in question are either on probation or suspended. Harvard has not provided a breakdown of the disciplinary actions or what thestudents had allegedly done, saying it cannot comment on individual cases.

The Corporation has faced pressure from conservative politicians, donors, students, and alumni who support Israel to show that the protesters, who repeatedly ignored disciplinary warnings during their encampment, will face serious consequences.

Each semester, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences holds a pro forma vote to approve the list of graduating seniors in what is usually a sleepy meeting that few voting members attend.

On Monday, however, 115 faculty members among the roughly 900 in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences attended, according to Harvard, and an amendment was added to the agenda to grant degrees to 13 undergraduate seniors who learned last week that they would be prevented from receiving their diplomas at graduation because of their participation in the encampment. The measure was approved on a voice vote.

The main pro-Palestinian student group at Harvard assailed the Corporation’s decision. “Today’s actions have plunged the university even further into a crisis of legitimacy and governance, which will have major repercussions for Harvard in the coming months and years,” the Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine coalition said in a statement.

The governing body’s move also resonated Wednesday evening on campus following Harvard’s annual Class Day ceremonies.

“The lack of accountability is infuriating,” said graduating senior Jeremy Ornstein, who spoke during Class Day. Ornstein said the student body is divided and added “people feel pain on all sides” of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Stephen Marglin, a professor of economics who has taught at Harvard for 59 years, called the Corporation’s decision “a slap in the face” to faculty and likely to prompt protests at graduation Thursday.

He does not support the pro-Palestinian protests because they have not acknowledged the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel that killed 1,200 and took 250 hostage with the same fervor as the “atrocity of the retaliation by the Netanyahu government.”

Still, he thinks the discipline went too far in preventing students from receiving degrees. The encampment, which included 30-40 tents, was “well within the bounds of what Harvard has tolerated in the past,” Marglin said.

Shortly after the Corporation’s decision Wednesday, Accuracy in Media, the conservative media company responsible for the billboard trucks that first arrived in Harvard Square in October, featuring student protesters’ photos and personal information, said it was sending another “mobile billboard” to commencement to expose “students who have engaged in antisemitic activities or used antisemitic rhetoric on campus.”

Massachusetts Peace Action, a nonprofit in Cambridge that advocates for disarmament, said it will hold a “solemn vigil for Gaza” outside the graduation.

Pro-Palestinian student protesters expressed shock last week that some students could be prevented from graduating, after they had dismantled their encampment with the understanding — based on their interpretation of their communications with interim president Alan Garber — that seniors would be allowed to graduate this semester.

In a May 14 email to student protesters, Garber said Harvard would “encourage” the “schools to address cases expeditiously under existing precedent and practice (including taking into account where relevant the voluntary decision to leave the encampment), for all students, including those students eligible thereafter to graduate so that they may do so.”

Harvard spokesperson Jonathan Swain said Sunday that Garber doesn’t have authority over student disciplinary matters, which are under the purview of individual schools within the university. However, in a letter to the Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance, Garber said he “strongly supports appropriate disciplinary action for those found to have violated university policies.”

Several faculty members who attended Monday’s faculty meeting said they felt Harvard should uphold the essence of the deal they believe Garber made with students to persuade them to take down the encampment.

“He was as clear as he could possibly be in his communication to students that he was urging leniency,” Steve Levitsky, professor of government, said of Garber. “And then suddenly the [Administrative] Board clearly violates the terms of the deal.”

The board, which is responsible for undergraduate discipline and made up of administrators and instructors, doled out the punishment for the 13 seniors last week. That decision was affirmed by the Harvard Corporation on Wednesday.

The Administrative Board is overseen by Harvard College dean Rakesh Khurana. Several faculty members who voted in Monday’s meeting said they believe some board members should have recused themselves from the 13 disciplinary cases related to the encampment because they were also responsible for identifying and taking photos and videos of protesters at the encampment, which Harvard asked them to do. But protesters felt that was violating given many protesters have been doxxed since Oct. 7.

Garber said in a May 6 email to the community that Harvard staffers were yelled at and encircled by protesters when the employees “requested to see IDs in order to enforce our policies.”

“We have also received reports that passers-by have been confronted, surveilled, and followed” by protesters, Garber wrote. “Such actions are indefensible and unacceptable.”

Some faculty members questioned those reports. Harvard closed its gates to the public and to media after students were arrested at Columbia University in April.

The Corporation said Wednesday that it also considered the unfairness “of exempting a particular group of students who are not in good standing from established rules.” Impacted students can now go through an expedited review and appeal process. It is unclear how long the appeal process could take.

Harvard and MIT are so far the only schools in Massachusetts that have moved to prevent students from graduating this semester because of their involvement. Garber has indicated Harvard will not consider divestment from Israel.

Harvard administrators previously told students in emails and through campus signage that “erecting structures, tents, and tables without authorization is a violation” of university rules, adding that students who disrupted normal activities would face disciplinary consequences.

Many within the Harvard community want to see the student protesters held accountable. Steven Pinker, a psychology professor , called the faculty vote on Monday “unfortunate.”

”There’s no coherent policy that would allow students to unilaterally expropriate the university commons and disrupt its functioning for a political cause that many other members of the university community oppose,” Pinker said. “And without sanctions, there’s no way to implement a coherent policy. Universities should encourage debate and deliberation, not forced takeovers and threats.”

Correspondent Alexa Coultoff contributed to this report.

Hilary Burns can be reached at [email protected] . Follow her @Hilarysburns .

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Nearly 500 Harvard Faculty, Staff Blast Sanctions Against Pro-Palestine Protesters in Open Letter

Nearly 500 Harvard faculty and staff members signed an open letter Monday condemning the “unprecedented, disproportionate, and arbitrary” level of sanctions against pro-Palestine demonstrators who camped in Harvard Yard.

The letter — addressed to interim Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76, Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra, and College Dean Rakesh Khurana — was signed by more than 350 faculty members and 135 staff members spanning the University.

The signatories urged Harvard leadership to reverse the Harvard College Administrative Board’s decision to bar 14 seniors from graduating during this week’s Commencement ceremonies. They argued that the sanctions went against the “widespread understanding that the university would facilitate prompt graduation.”

The penalties have drawn widespread anger among faculty and students. At a Monday degree meeting, the FAS voted to add the names of the 13 seniors who were slated to receive their diplomas Thursday back to the list of recommended degree candidates.

The faculty and staff members who signed the letter wrote that they are “alarmed that Harvard undergraduate students who engaged in peaceful protest are being sanctioned in an unprecedented, disproportionate, and arbitrary manner.”

In total, the Ad Board suspended five undergraduates and placed at least 20 others on probation for their involvement in the encampment. The Ad Board’s decisions barred 15 seniors from graduating until next year at the earliest — including 13 who were on track to walk at Commencement this spring.

University spokesperson Jason A. Newton declined to comment, but referred The Crimson to an email from Garber to Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine organizers detailing the terms of his agreement with protesters, who promised to peacefully end the encampment.

In the email, Garber promised that the University would encourage Harvard’s disciplinary bodies to “encourage the administrative boards or other disciplinary bodies within the schools to address cases expeditiously under existing precedent and practice (including taking into account where relevant the voluntary decision to leave the encampment), for all students, including those students eligible thereafter to graduate so that they may do so.”

The email did not explicitly promise leniency for students facing Ad Board proceedings.

Spokespeople for the FAS and the College did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Notable signatories of Monday’s letter include English professor Tracy K. Smith ’92, Harvard Law School professor Laurence H. Tribe, and History professor Vincent Brown. Six members of Harvard’s presidential task force on combating anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bias signed the letter, including its three co-chairs — professors Ali S. Asani ’77, Wafaie W. Fawzi, and Asim I. Khwaja.

A document linked in the letter — titled “Details of Current Disciplinary Actions: for Concerned Faculty” — laid out a list of procedural criticisms.

The document describes the Ad Board penalties as “internally inconsistent” across Harvard’s schools, pointing to four — the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Harvard Divinity School, Harvard Graduate School of Education, and Harvard Law School — whose disciplinary boards chose not to penalize encampment participants with any sanctions harsher than a warning.

It alleged that the affected undergraduates had been “led to believe the process had been expedited specifically to allow them to graduate,” and suggested that external pressure — such as the ongoing investigation by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce — led to “procedural improvisations” to allow for harsher sanctions.

Those improvisations, the signatories argued, “threaten to undermine faculty governance and the integrity of our university.”

The signatories argued that the sanctions are a breach of trust between students and faculty and the administration.

“The primary outcome of these highly irregular Administrative Board proceedings will be to unduly harm these students’ future employment and current livelihood and to create further division on campus at a time when we should come together to honor our graduates,” the letter’s authors wrote.

—Staff writer Tilly R. Robinson can be reached at [email protected] . Follow her on X @tillyrobin .

—Staff writer Neil H. Shah can be reached at [email protected] . Follow him on X @neilhshah15 .

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