Subdivision
| • | 503. Administrators, Bankers and Opinion Leaders from the Public or Private Sectors | [X] |
| | 241 | Name: | Dr. Charles M. Vest | | | Institution: | National Academy of Engineering | | | Year Elected: | 2008 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 503. Administrators, Bankers and Opinion Leaders from the Public or Private Sectors | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1941 | | | Death Date: | December 12, 2013 | | | | | | |
Charles M. Vest was President Emeritus of the National Academy of Engineering and President Emeritus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the time of his death December 12, 2013, at the age of 72, in Washington, DC.
Dr. Vest earned a B.S. in mechanical engineering from West Virginia University in 1963, and M.S.E. and PhD degrees in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan in 1964 and 1967 respectively. He joined the faculty of the University of Michigan as an assistant professor in 1968 where he taught in the areas of heat transfer, thermodynamics, and fluid mechanic, and conducted research in heat transfer and engineering applications of laser optics and holography. He and his graduate students developed techniques for making quantitative measurements of various properties and motions from holographic interferograms, especially the measurement of three-dimensional temperature and density fields using computer tomography. He became an associate professor in 1972 and a full professor in 1977.
In 1981 Dr. Vest turned much of his attention to academic administration at the University of Michigan, serving as associate dean of engineering from 1981-86, dean of engineering from 1986-1989, when he became provost and vice president for academic affairs. In 1990 he became president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and served in that position until December 2004. He then became professor and president emeritus.
As president of MIT, he was active in science, technology, and innovation policy; building partnerships among academia, government and industry; and championing the importance of open, global scientific communication, travel, and sharing of intellectual resources. During his tenure, MIT launched its OpenCourseWare (OCW) initiative; co-founded the Alliance for Global Sustainability; enhanced the racial, gender, and cultural diversity of its students and faculty; established major new institutes in neuroscience and genomic medicine; and redeveloped much of its campus.
He was a director of DuPont for 14 years and of IBM for 13 years; was vice chair of the U.S. Council on Competitiveness for eight years; and served on various federal committees and commissions, including the Presidents Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) during the Clinton and Bush administrations, the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, the Secretary of Education's Commission on the Future of Higher Education, the Secretary of State's Advisory Committee on Transformational Diplomacy and the Rice-Chertoff Secure Borders and Open Doors Advisory Committee. He served on the boards of several non-profit organizations and foundations devoted to education, science, and technology.
In July 2007 he was elected to serve as president of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering (NAE) for six years and he became president emeritus in 2013. He had authored a book on holographic interferometry, and two books on higher education. He received honorary doctoral degrees from ten universities, was awarded the 2006 National Medal of Technology by President Bush, and won the National Science Board's Vannevar Bush Award in 2011. Charles Vest was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2008. | |
| 242 | Name: | Mr. Paul A. Volcker | | | Institution: | New York University & Princeton University | | | Year Elected: | 1998 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 503. Administrators, Bankers and Opinion Leaders from the Public or Private Sectors | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1927 | | | Death Date: | December 8, 2019 | | | | | | |
Over the course of his career, Paul A. Volcker was Chairman of the Board of Governors of the U.S. Federal Reserve System; North American Chairman of The Trilateral Commission; Chairman of Wolfensohn & Co., Inc.; and Professor of International Economic Policy at Princeton University. Educated at Princeton and Harvard Universities and the London School of Economics, Mr. Volcker divided the earlier stages of his career between the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Chase Manhattan Bank and the U.S. Treasury Department. He was chairman of the Board of Trustees of the International Accounting Standards Committee, overseeing a renewed effort to develop consistent, high-quality accounting standards acceptable in all countries. He is remembered especially for his success in lowering the inflation rate during his time as Chariman of the Federal Reserve. In November 2008 he agreed to lead the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, a new White House economic advisory committee comprised of officials from a variety of business sectors. Paul Volcker died December 8, 2019 in New York, New York at the age of 92. | |
| 243 | Name: | Mr. Darren Walker | | | Institution: | Ford Foundation | | | Year Elected: | 2021 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 503. Administrators, Bankers and Opinion Leaders from the Public or Private Sectors | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1959 | | | | | | |
Darren Walker is president of the Ford Foundation, a $13 billion international social justice philanthropy. He is a member of Governor Cuomo’s Reimagining New York Commission and co-chair of NYC Census 2020. He chaired the philanthropy committee that brought a resolution to the city of Detroit’s historic bankruptcy. Under his leadership, the Ford Foundation became the first non-profit in US history to issue a $1 billion designated social bond in US capital markets for proceeds to strengthen and stabilize non-profit organizations in the wake of COVID-19.
Before joining Ford, Darren was vice president at Rockefeller Foundation, overseeing global and domestic programs. In the 1990s, he was COO of the Abyssinian Development Corporation, Harlem’s largest community development organization.
Darren co-chairs New York City’s Mayoral Advisory Commission on City Art, Monuments, and Markers, and has served on the Independent Commission on New York City Criminal Justice and Incarceration Reform and the UN International Labour Organization Global Commission on the Future of Work. He co-founded both the US Impact Investing Alliance and the Presidents’ Council on Disability Inclusion in Philanthropy. He serves on many boards, including Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the National Gallery of Art, Carnegie Hall, the High Line, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture. In the summer of 2020, he was appointed to the boards of Square and Ralph Lauren. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is the recipient of 16 honorary degrees and university awards, including Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Medal.
Educated exclusively in public schools, Darren was a member of the first Head Start class in 1965 and received BA, BS, and JD degrees from the University of Texas at Austin. He has been included on numerous leadership lists: Time’s annual 100 Most Influential People, Rolling Stone’s 25 People Shaping the Future, Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business, Ebony's Power 100, and Out magazine’s Power 50. Most recently, Darren was named Wall Street Journal’s 2020 Philanthropy Innovator. | |
| 244 | Name: | Ms. Alice Waters | | | Institution: | Chez Panisse Restaurant and Café | | | Year Elected: | 2014 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 503. Administrators, Bankers and Opinion Leaders from the Public or Private Sectors | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1944 | | | | | | |
Alice Waters was educated at the University of California, Berkeley. Among her wards are: Best Chef in America, James Beard Foundation, 1992; Best Restaurant in America, Gourmet magazine, 2001; Force for Nature Award, Natural Resources Defense Council, 2004; Lifetime Achievement Award, Restaurant magazine’s World’s 50 Best Restaurants, 2007; co-recipient, with Kofi Annan, Global Environmental Citizen Award, 2008; and National Humanities Medal, 2014. She authored (with C. Petrini, W. McCuaig) Slow Food: The Case for Taste (Arts and Traditions of the Table: Perspectives on Culinary History) in 2004, The Art of Simple Food: Notes and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution in 2007, and The Edible Schoolyard, 2008; In the Green Kitchen: Techniques to Learn by Heart in 2010. She was elected a member of American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2007.
Alice Waters has been one of the world’s premier advocates for healthy, homegrown, and exceptional food. If there are now scores of books and articles written about food and health, Waters has been one of the world’s leaders in the movement toward Americans and others eating more healthy food – and having them do it as part of a family experience. Indeed, she has been “credited with revolutionizing American cooking in the 1970s and 1980s,” according to The New York Times. She is the executive chef, founder (in 1971), and owner of the, now legendary, Chez Panisse Restaurant and Café in Berkeley. She is one of the leaders of the slow food movement. She started projects at Yale University on sustainable foods; she extended the program to the American Academy in Rome. She works in the California school system to enhance awareness among our youth of the value of eating better food. For her work on multiple fronts, she has won a host of awards, including the Global Environmental Citizen Award in 2008 (which she shared with then U.N. Secretary General, Kofi Annan). There have been few people in the past several decades who match Alice Water’s positive influence on the eating habits of Americans. | |
| 245 | Name: | Mr. Thomas J. Watson | | | Institution: | IBM & American Foreign Service | | | Year Elected: | 1984 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 503. Administrators, Bankers and Opinion Leaders from the Public or Private Sectors | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1914 | | | Death Date: | 12/31/93 | | | | |
| 246 | Name: | Dr. Bernard Charles Watson | | | Institution: | Temple University & The Barnes Foundation | | | Year Elected: | 1991 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 503. Administrators, Bankers and Opinion Leaders from the Public or Private Sectors | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1928 | | | | | | |
As the former president and CEO of the William Penn Foundation, Bernard Watson was a forceful, able executive who set the foundation on its present path. The first African-American to hold the position, he is credited with helping to bring about solutions to many Philadelphia-area problems while working well with the board and strengthening the organization's staff. A former public school teacher and deputy superintendent of the Philadelphia School District, Dr. Watson has a strong background in education, having also served as a Presidential Scholar, professor of urban studies and academic vice president at Temple University. An endowed chair at Temple was established in his name in 2008. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago (1967). Dr. Watson has also been Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Barnes Foundation as well as vice chairman of the Pennyslvania Convention Center. He has received awards ranging from the Educator's Roundtable Marcus Foster Award to the National Urban Coalition's Education and Community Service Achievement Award, and in 1974 he published the book In Spite of the System: The Individual and Educational Reform. | |
| 247 | Name: | Sir Robert Tony Watson | | | Institution: | University of East Anglia | | | Year Elected: | 2020 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 503. Administrators, Bankers and Opinion Leaders from the Public or Private Sectors | | | Residency: | International | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1948 | | | | | | |
Sir Robert Tony Watson, CMG, FRS
My career has evolved from a Ph.D. student at QMC, London University; a post-doctoral fellow at University of California, Berkeley and University of Maryland, USA; a research scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, USA; a Federal Government program manager/director at the US NASA; a scientific advisor in the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), White House, USA; a scientific advisor, manager and chief scientist at the World Bank; chief scientific advisor to the UK Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Sir Louis Matheson Fellow, Monash Sustainability Institute (MSI), Monash University, Australia, and Professor of Environmental Sciences and strategic director for the Tyndall Center at the University of East Anglia, UK. In parallel to my formal positions I have chaired, co-chaired or directed a number of national and international scientific, technical and economic assessments, including WMO/UNEP stratospheric ozone depletion assessments, Global Biodiversity Assessment, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, UK National Ecosystem Assessment and its Follow-on, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Intergovernmental Assessment of Agricultural Scientific and Technology for Development, and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. I have also been awarded a number of honours, including 2012 Knights Bachelor,UK, 2003, Companion of the Order of Saint Michael and Saint George, UK; fellowships (2011, Fellow of the Royal Society, UK), and awards, including 2014, UN Champion of the World for Science and Innovation, 2010, Asahi Glass Blue Planet Prize, 2008, American Association for the Advancement of Science Award for International Scientific Cooperation, and I contributed to the 2007 - Nobel Peace Prize for the IPCC, which I chaired from 1997-2002. Sir Robert Tony Watson was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2020. | |
| 248 | Name: | Mr. John F. Welch | | | Institution: | General Electric | | | Year Elected: | 2000 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 503. Administrators, Bankers and Opinion Leaders from the Public or Private Sectors | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1935 | | | Death Date: | March 1, 2020 | | | | |
| 249 | Name: | Arthur Wellesley | | | Institution: | Wellington College | | | Year Elected: | 1993 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 503. Administrators, Bankers and Opinion Leaders from the Public or Private Sectors | | | Residency: | International | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1915 | | | Death Date: | December 31, 2014 | | | | | | |
Arthur Wellesley, 8th Duke of Wellington, was a British peer and retired brigadier in the British Army. Born in Rome in 1915, he attended Eton and New College, Oxford before joining the British Army and serving in World War II. He became defense attache to Spain in 1964 and retired from the army in 1968 as a brigadier, receiving the Military Cross for his service. Beginning in the mid-1960s the Duke has served as director of Massey Ferguson Holdings, Ltd. And as governor of Wellington College. He was also vice president of the Royal British Legion, president of the Atlantic Salmon Trust and vice president of the Kennel Club. An effective promoter of conservation and environmental programs, he led organizations such as the Game Conservancy, the Council for Environmental Conservation and the Rare Breeds Survival Trust and opened the estate of the original Duke of Wellington for public enjoyment, planting more than one million trees throughout the 550-acre preserve. He died December 31, 2014, at the age of 99. | |
| 250 | Name: | Dr. Herman B Wells | | | Institution: | Indiana University | | | Year Elected: | 1964 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 503. Administrators, Bankers and Opinion Leaders from the Public or Private Sectors | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1902 | | | Death Date: | March 18, 2000 | | | | |
| 251 | Name: | Dr. Cornel West | | | Institution: | Union Theological Seminary | | | Year Elected: | 1997 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 503. Administrators, Bankers and Opinion Leaders from the Public or Private Sectors | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1953 | | | | | | |
Cornel West is Dietrich Bonhoeffer Professor at Union Theological Seminary, having previously held the position Professor of the Practice of Public Philosophy at Harvard University until 2021. In 1984, he went to Yale Divinity School in what eventually became a joint appointment in American Studies. In 1988, he moved to Princeton University where he became a Professor of Religion and Director of the Program in African-American Studies. In 1994 he accepted an appointment as Professor of African-American Studies at Harvard University, with a joint appointment at the Harvard Divinity School. West taught one of the University's most popular courses, an introductory class to African-American Studies. In 1998, he was appointed the first Alphonse Fletcher University Professor. West utilized this new position to teach not only in African-American studies, but in Divinity, Religion, and Philosophy. West left Harvard after a widely-publicized dispute with then-President Lawrence Summers in 2002. That year, West returned to Princeton, where he continued to teach in African-American Studies. He remained at Princeton until July 2012, when he became Professor Emeritus at Princeton University and moved to the Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York where he had started as an Assistant Professor after receiving his Ph.D. from Princeton University. Cornel West remained at Union Theological Seminary until his return to Harvard in 2016.
Dr. West's teaching and research interests include philosophy of religion and cultural criticism, and his many intellectual contributions draw from such diverse traditions as Marxism, pragmatism, transcendentalism and the African American Baptist Church. Perhaps more than anyone else, he has restored the full presence of the spoken voice to the discourse of contemporary philosophy: the rhythmic structure of the performed word, the philosophically performed word. He is the author of books such as Prophesy Deliverance: An Afro-American Revolutionary Christianity; The American Evasion of Philosophy; The Ethical Dimension of Marxist Thought; Prophetic Thought in Post Modern Times; Race Matters; and Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism as well as the spoken-word recording "Sketches of My Culture." A brilliant thinker and speaker, Dr. West maintains a truly international focus and perspective on the enormously complex issues of race, ethnic identity and class. | |
| 252 | Name: | The Honorable John C. Whitehead | | | Institution: | Federal Reserve Bank of New York & International Rescue Committee & Andrew W. Mellon Foundation | | | Year Elected: | 1997 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 503. Administrators, Bankers and Opinion Leaders from the Public or Private Sectors | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1922 | | | Death Date: | February 7, 2015 | | | | | | |
John Whitehead was born in Evanston, Illinois and grew up in Montclair, NJ.
He graduated from Haverford College in 1943, served in the U.S. Navy during World War II and received his MBA from Harvard Business School in 1947.
After receiving his degree, he began at Goldman, Sachs & Company and retired in 1985 as co-chairman and senior partner.
From 1985-89, he served as Deputy Secretary of State under President Ronald Reagan.
When he returned to New York, he became active in a number of educational, civic and charitable organizations, serving, at various times, as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the United Nations Association, the International Rescue Committee, the Greater NY Councils of the Boy Scouts, the Brookings Institute and the National Gallery of Art.
He had served as a director of the Nature Conservatory, Lincoln Center Theater, the East-West Institute, Rockefeller University, the J. Paul Getty Trust and the National Humanities Center, among others.
In 2001 he was appointed as Chairman of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, the organization responsible for the rebuilding of Lower Manhattan. He served in that capacity until May 2006. He was also the Founding Chairman of the National September 11th Memorial and Museum. In 2012 he was awarded the Asia Society Award.
John Whitehead was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1997. He died February 7, 2015, at age 92 at home in New York. | |
| 253 | Name: | Dr. Deborah Willis | | | Institution: | New York University | | | Year Elected: | 2024 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 503. Administrators, Bankers and Opinion Leaders from the Public or Private Sectors | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1948 | | | | | | |
Deborah Willis, Ph.D. is University Professor and Chair of the Department of Photography & Imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University and has affiliated appointments with the College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Social & Cultural and the Institute of Fine Arts where she teaches courses on Photography & Imaging, iconicity, and cultural histories visualizing the black body, women, and gender. She is also the director of NYU’s Center for Black Visual Culture/Institute for African American Affairs. Her research examines photography’s multifaceted histories, visual culture, contemporary women photographers and beauty.
She received the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship and was a Richard D. Cohen Fellow in African and African American Art, Hutchins Center, Harvard University; a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow, and an Alphonse Fletcher, Jr. Fellow. In 2019 she was the Robert Mapplethorpe Photographer in Residence of the American Academy in Rome, she is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and received awards from the College Art Association for Writing Art History (2021) and the Outstanding Service Award from the Royal Photographic Society in the UK. She was awarded the Don Tyson Prize for the Advancement of American Art by the Crystal Bridges Museum in 2022 and named the Mary Lucille Dauray Artist-in-Residence by the Norton Museum of Art in 2023. She has pursued a dual professional career as an art photographer and as one of the nation's leading historians of African American photography and curator of African diasporic cultures.
Willis is the author of The Black Civil War Soldier: A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship, Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the Present; Out [o] Fashion Photography: Embracing Beauty; Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers - 1840 to the Present; Let Your Motto be Resistance – African American Portraits; Family History Memory: Photographs by Deborah Willis; VANDERZEE: The Portraits of James VanDerZee; and co-author of The Black Female Body A Photographic History with Carla Williams; Envisioning Emancipation: Black Americans and the End of Slavery with Barbara Krauthamer; and Michelle Obama: The First Lady in Photographs (both titles a NAACP Image Award Winner).
She lectures widely and has co-edited books Women and Migration(s); authored many papers and articles on a range of subjects including The Image of the Black in Western Art, Gordon Parks Life Works, Steidl, Volume II; America’s Lens in Double Exposure: Through the African American Lens; “Photographing Between the Lines: Beauty, Politics and the Poetic Vision of Carrie Mae Weems,” in Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography & Video, and “Malick Sidibé: The Front of the Back View” in Self: Portraiture and Social Identity. Professor Willis is editor of Picturing Us: African American Identity in Photography; and Black Venus 2010: They Called Her "Hottentot", which received the Susan Koppelman Award for the Best Edited Volume in Women's Studies by the Popular Culture/American Culture Association in 2011.
Exhibitions of her artwork include: Monument Lab Staying Power, Philadelphia; 100Years/100Women, Park Avenue Armory, In Conversation: Visual Meditations on Black Masculinity, African American Museum Philadelphia; MFON: Black Women Photographers, African American Museum Philadelphia; In Pursuit of Beauty, Express Newark, Rutgers University, Newark, “Mirror Mirror” Express Newark, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ; A Sense of Place, Frick, University of Pittsburgh; Regarding Beauty, University of Wisconsin, Interventions in Printmaking: Three Generations of African-American Women, Allentown Museum of Art; A Family Affair, University of South Florida; I am Going to Eatonville, Zora Neale Hurston Museum; Afrique: See you, see me; Progeny: Deborah Willis +Hank Willis Thomas. Gantt Center.
Professor Willis’s curated exhibitions include: “Framing Moments in the KIA” Kalamazoo Institute of the Arts, “Framing Beauty” at the Henry Art Gallery; "Reframing Beauty: Intimate Moments" at Indiana University; “Migrations & Meanings in Art” Maryland Institute of the Arts; “Convergence”, Joan Mitchell Center, New Orleans; “Out [o] Fashion Photography: Embracing Beauty,” Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, “Visualizing Emancipation,” Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, “Gordon Parks: 100 Moments,” Schomburg Center; “Posing Beauty Let Your Motto Be Resistance: African American Portraits” at the International Center of Photography, “Social in Practice: The Art of Collaboration”, Nathan Cummings Foundation, "Home: Reimagining Interiority '' at YoungArts, and “Free as they want to be: Artists Committed to Memory '' at the National Underground Freedom Center, FotoFocus Biennial 2022.
In addition to making art, writing and teaching, she has served as a consultant to museums, archives, and educational centers. She has appeared and consulted on media projects including the documentary films such as Through A Lens Darkly, Question Bridge: Black Males, a transmedia project, which received the ICP Infinity Award 2015, and American Photography, PBS Documentary. Since 2006 she has co-organized thematic conferences exploring “Black Portraitures” focusing on imaging the black body. She holds honorary degrees from Pratt Institute and the Maryland Institute, College of Art. She is currently researching two projects on photography and the black arts movement and artists reimaging history. | |
| 254 | Name: | Governor Thomas W. Wolf | | | Year Elected: | 2024 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 503. Administrators, Bankers and Opinion Leaders from the Public or Private Sectors | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1948 | | | | |
| 255 | Name: | Sir James D. Wolfensohn | | | Institution: | The World Bank | | | Year Elected: | 1997 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 503. Administrators, Bankers and Opinion Leaders from the Public or Private Sectors | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1933 | | | Death Date: | November 25, 2020 | | | | | | |
Sir James D. Wolfensohn was Chairman of Wolfensohn & Company, LLC, a private investment firm and an advisor to corporations and governments. He became Chairman of Citi International Advisory Board on April 18, 2006. He was also advisor to Citi's senior management on global strategy and on international matters. He was the ninth president of the World Bank Group (1995-2005). On May 31, 2005, at the end of his second term, he left office and assumed the post of Special Envoy for Gaza Disengagement for the Quartet on the Middle East, a position he served until April 30, 2006. In this role, he helped coordinate Israel's planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and spearheaded reconstruction efforts as Palestinians assumed sovereignty over the area. He was also Chairman of the advisory group of the Wolfensohn Center, a new research initiative focused on global poverty, at the Brookings Institution. He was the third president in the World Bank's history to be reappointed for a second five-year term by the Board of Executive Directors. As President of the World Bank, he travelled to more than 120 countries in order to pursue the challenges facing the World Bank in regard to poverty and environmental issues. He led successful initiatives on debt reduction, environmental sustainability, anti corruption programs, and AIDS prevention and treatment. He developed activities on religion and culture and decentralized offices overseas linked by the most modern telecommunications system in the international community. Prior to joining the Bank, Mr. Wolfensohn was an international investment banker. His last position was as President and Chief Executive Officer of James D. Wolfensohn, Inc., his own investment and corporate advisory firm set up in 1981 to work with major U.S. and international corporations. He relinquished his interests in the firm upon joining the World Bank. Before setting up his own company, Mr. Wolfensohn held a series of senior positions in finance. He was Executive Partner of Salomon Brothers in New York and head of its investment banking department. He was Executive Deputy Chairman and Managing Director of Schroders Ltd. in London, President of J. Henry Schroders Banking Corporation in New York, and Managing Director of Darling & Co. of Australia. Throughout his career Mr. Wolfensohn has also closely involved himself in a wide range of cultural and voluntary activities, especially in the performing arts. He has served as Chairman of the Board of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University for the last 18 years. In 1970, Mr. Wolfensohn became involved in New York's Carnegie Hall, first as a board member and later, from 1980 to 1991, as Chairman of the Board, during which time he led its successful effort to restore the landmark New York building. He was Chairman Emeritus of Carnegie Hall. In 1990 Mr. Wolfensohn became Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. On January 1, 1996, he was elected Chairman Emeritus. Mr. Wolfensohn has been President of the International Federation of Multiple Sclerosis Societies, Director of the Business Council for Sustainable Development, and served both as Chairman of the Finance Committee and as Director of the Rockefeller Foundation and of the Population Council, and as a member of the Board of Rockefeller University. He was an Honorary Trustee of the Brookings Institution, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Century Association in New York. Born in Australia in December 1933, Mr. Wolfensohn is a naturalized U.S. citizen. In 2014 he reestablished his Australian cititzenship and now has dual U.S./Australian citizenship. He holds B.A. and LL.B. degrees from the University of Sydney and an M.B.A. from the Harvard Graduate School of Business. Before attending Harvard, he was a lawyer in the Australian law firm of Allen, Allen & Hemsley. Mr. Wolfensohn served as an Officer in the Royal Australian Air Force and was a member of the 1956 Australian Olympic Fencing Team. Mr. Wolfensohn is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and a member of the American Philosophical Society. He has been the recipient of many awards for his volunteer work, including the first David Rockefeller Prize of the Museum of Modern Art in New York for his work for culture and the arts. In May 1995 he was awarded an Honorary Knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II for his contribution to the arts. Sir James Wolfensohn has also been decorated by the governments of Australia, Belgium, Brazil, France, Germany, Georgia, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, the Netherlands, Norway, Peru, Pakistan and Russia. He and his wife, Elaine, an education specialist and a graduate of Wellesley, B.A., and Columbia University, M.A. and M.Ed., have three children: Sara, Naomi, and Adam. His autobiography, A Global Life: My Journey among Rich and Poor, from Sydney to Wall Street to the World Bank, was published in 2010. James Wolfensohn died on November 25, 2020, in Manhattan at age 86. | |
| 256 | Name: | Professor Lewis Wolpert | | | Institution: | University College, London | | | Year Elected: | 2002 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 503. Administrators, Bankers and Opinion Leaders from the Public or Private Sectors | | | Residency: | International | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1929 | | | Death Date: | January 28, 2021 | | | | | | |
Lewis Wolpert was Emeritus Professor of Biology as Applied to Medicine in the Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology of University College London. His research interests are in the mechanisms involved in the development of the embryo. He was originally trained as a civil engineer in South Africa but changed to research in cell biology at King's College London in 1955. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1980 and awarded the CBE in 1990. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1999. For five years he was chairman of the Committee for the Public Understanding of Science. He has presented science on both radio and ATV. His books include Malignant Sadness - The Anatomy of Depression (1999); Principles of Development (1992), of which he is principal author; A Passion for Science and Passionate Minds with Alison Richards (interviews with scientists); and The Unnatural Nature of Science (1992). His most recent book on belief was published in 2006. Dr. Wolpert also writes a column for "Independent", plays lots of tennis and is devoted to his mountain bike. He died on January 28, 2021. | |
| 257 | Name: | Mr. Edgar S. Woolard | | | Institution: | DuPont | | | Year Elected: | 1996 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 503. Administrators, Bankers and Opinion Leaders from the Public or Private Sectors | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1934 | | | Death Date: | December 4, 2023 | | | | | | |
Edgar S. Woolard, Jr. was born in North Carolina in 1934. He graduated from North Carolina State University in 1956 with an industrial engineering degree and took a job at DuPont's Kinston, North Carolina plant the next year. He quickly demonstrated an aptitude for management, and during the 1960s he held supervisory positions at Kinston, Wilmington and Old Hickory. As managing director of the Textile Marketing Division during the economic downturn of the mid-1970s, Woolard took a hard look at DuPont's corporate performance. His conclusion was that the company could no longer depend on big scientific breakthroughs and huge manufacturing facilities. Instead he focused on lowering costs and streamlining the production process. In the late 1970s, as general manager of Textile Fibers, Woolard worked closely with customers and suppliers in pursuit of more efficient textile manufacturing. After he was elected executive vice president and appointed to the Board of Directors in 1983, Woolard streamlined management and production in three other departments: Agricultural Chemicals, Photo Products and the Medical Division. Woolard was elected president and chief operating officer in 1987 and chief executive officer two years later, a period when DuPont faced economic recession, the loss of important markets to competitors, and a possible takeover. To streamline corporate decision making, Woolard eliminated the Executive Committee and directed department managers to report directly to the CEO. These measures cut corporate costs $3 billion between 1991 and 1994. Woolard also initiated DuPont's joint venture with Merck Pharmaceutical and major investments in new agricultural chemicals. Woolard retired from DuPont in December 1995. | |
| 258 | Name: | Dr. Harry Woolf | | | Institution: | Institute for Advanced Study | | | Year Elected: | 1977 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 503. Administrators, Bankers and Opinion Leaders from the Public or Private Sectors | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1923 | | | Death Date: | January 6, 2003 | | | | |
| 259 | Name: | Dr. Mark S. Wrighton | | | Institution: | Washington University in St. Louis | | | Year Elected: | 2001 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 503. Administrators, Bankers and Opinion Leaders from the Public or Private Sectors | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1949 | | | | | | |
Before being named chancellor of Washington University in 1995, Mark Wrighton served for five years as provost of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was an assistant professor at M.I.T. at the age of 23 and, fifteen years later, became chairman of the Department of Chemistry. Dr. Wrighton's gifts as a teacher, administrator and scientist are widely recognized. For his achievements has received the Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, the Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Grant, and the American Chemist Society Award in Pure Chemistry, among other honors. From 1983-88 he was a MacArthur Fellow, and he is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences; the American Chemical Society; and the Electrochemical Society. In 2018 he was named a leader of United Way community campaigns. Mark Wrighton was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2001. | |
| 260 | Name: | Dr. Ernesto Zedillo | | | Institution: | Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, Yale University; Mexico | | | Year Elected: | 2011 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 503. Administrators, Bankers and Opinion Leaders from the Public or Private Sectors | | | Residency: | International | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1951 | | | | | | |
Ernesto Zedillo is the Frederick Iseman ’74 Director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization; Professor in the Field of International Economics and Politics; Professor of International and Area Studies; and Professor Adjunct of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale University. He teaches two undergraduate courses at Yale, a lecture course on international trade and a seminar on "Debating Globalization."
He earned his Bachelor’s degree from the School of Economics of the Natìonal Polytechnic Institute in Mexico and his M.A. and Ph.D. at Yale University. He was a Professor at the Natìonal Polytechnic Institute and El Colegio de Mexico. From 1978-87 he was with the Central Bank of Mexico; from 1987-88 he served the National Government of Mexico as Undersecretary of Budget; from 1988-1992 as Secretary of Economic Programming and the Budget; and he was appointed Secretary of Education in 1992. In 1994 Zedillo ran for the presidency and won. He served his country as President of Mexico from 1994-2000.
He was Chairman of the Global Development Network from 2005 to 2011, an organization that works with developing country researchers and policy research institutes to support the generation and sharing of policy-relevant research on development. He was appointed by the President of the World Bank to chair the High Level Commission on Modernization of World Bank Group Governance. The Commission’s final report, Repowering the Bank for the 21st Century, was launched in October of 2009. During 2007 and 2008 he served on the Commission on Growth and Development, chaired by Nobel Laureate, Michael Spence. The Commission's final publication, The Growth Report: Strategies for Sustained Growth and Inclusive Development, was launched in May of 2008.
He served on the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament, which released its final report, Eliminating Nuclear Threats: A Practical Agenda for Global Policymakers, in December of 2009. In 2007 he was appointed by Mohamed ElBaradei to serve as Chair of the Commission of Eminent Persons to recommend the future course of the International Atomic Energy Agency. This Commission presented its report in May of 2008, entitled Reinforcing the Global Nuclear Order for Peace and Prosperity.
He co-chaired the Partnership of the Americas Commission with Thomas Pickering which produced its final report, Rethinking US-Latin American Relations, in November of 2008, and the Commission on Drugs and Democracy with former Presidents Cardoso of Brazil and Gaviria of Colombia, producing the final report Drugs and Democracy in Latin America in February 2009. In 2007 and 2008 he served on the High Level Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor.
He currently serves on the Global Development Program Advisory Panel of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He is a Member of the Foundation Board of the World Economic Forum; the Trilateral Commission; the International Advisory Board of the Council on Foreign Relations; the G30; the Board of Directors of the Institute for International Economics; and the Board of Directors of the Inter-American Dialogue.
He is the recipient of honorary degrees from Yale and Harvard Universities, the University of Miami; and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is the recipient of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Freedom from Fear Award; the Gold Insigne of the Council of the Americas; the Tribuna Americana Award of the Casa de America of Madrid; the Berkeley Medal, UC Berkeley’s highest honor; and the 2006 Sustainable Development Leadership Award presented by the Energy Resources Institute (TERI) in New Delhi. Two books he edited, Global Warming: Looking Beyond Kyoto (Brookings/YCSG) and The Future of Globalization: Explorations in Light of Recent Turbulence (Routledge) were published in 2008. | |
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