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Board of Governors

This esteemed group of experts helps the Academy effectively advance science for the public good.

Board

Chair

Immediate Past Chair

  • Jerry Hultin, Chair and Co-Founder, Global Futures Group, LLC

Vice-Chair

Treasurer

  • Amber Miller, President, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

President

  • Nicholas B. Dirks, President and Chief Executive Officer, The New York Academy of Sciences

Corporate Secretary

Executive Associate to the Corporate Secretary

Governors

  • Armen Avanessians, Former Head and Chief Investment Officer, Goldman Sachs Asset Management’s (GSAM) Quantitative Investment Strategies Group
  • Serg Bell, Founder and Chairman, Constructor Group, and Founder, Acronis
  • Natarajan Chandrasekaran, Chairman of the Board, Tata Sons
  • MaryEllen Elia, President, Success for Students, Inc.; former Partner and Senior Fellow, International Center for Leadership in Education; former Commissioner of Education and President of The University of the State of New York
  • Thomas C. Franco, Senior Advisor, Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, LLC
  • Darío Gil, Senior Vice President and Director of IBM Research
  • Aida Habtezion, Chief Medical Officer and Head of Worldwide Medical & Safety, Pfizer Inc.
  • Jerry Hultin, Chair and Co-Founder, Global Futures Group, LLC; Chair Emeritus, The New York Academy of Sciences
  • Seema Kumar, Chief Executive Officer, Cure.; former Global Head – Office of Innovation, Global Health and Scientific Engagement, Johnson & Johnson
  • Ravi Kumar S., Chief Executive Officer, Cognizant​
  • R. May Lee, Co-leader, Guild of Future Architects; Adjunct Professor of “Entrepreneurship and Architecture”, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; former Dean, School of Entrepreneurship and Management, ShanghaiTech University; and former Vice Chancellor, New York University
  • John Reed, Executive Vice President, Pharmaceuticals, R&D, Johnson & Johnson
  • Lowell Robinson, Corporate Director and Advisor, Barnes & Noble Education
  • Laura Sachar, Managing Partner and Co-Founder, StarVest Partners
  • Konstantin Shakhnovich, Former Global Head of Trading, Citadel Asset Management; former Partner and Global Head of Systematic Market-Making, Goldman Sachs
  • Subra Suresh, President, Global Learning Council; Former President of Carnegie Mellon University, and former Director of the US National Science Foundation
  • Chandrika Tandon, Recognized Business Leader, Grammy-Nominated Artist, and Humanitarian
  • Peter Thorén, Executive Vice President, Access Industries
  • Grace Wang, 17th President of Worcester Polytechnic Institute
  • Jeremy Wertheimer, Chief Executive Officer, Biological Engineering Ventures
  • George D. Yancopoulos, Co-Founder, President and Chief Scientific Officer, Regeneron
  • Michael Young, Nobel Laureate; Richard and Jeanne Fisher Professor and Vice President for Academic Affairs, The Rockefeller University

Honorary Life Governors

  • Karen E. Burke, Dermatologist and Research Scientist; Honorary Life Governor
  • Paul Horn, Executive Chair and Founding Partner, Venly; Distinguished Scientist in Residence, New York University; former Senior Vice Provost for Research, New York University; former Senior Vice President and Director of IBM Research
  • Pablo Legorreta, Founder & CEO, Royalty Pharma
  • John Niblack, Former President, Pfizer Global Research & Development
  • Torsten Wiesel, Nobel Laureate; President Emeritus and Vincent and Brooke Astor Professor Emeritus, The Rockefeller University; former Secretary-General, Human Frontier Science Program Organization

International Board of Governors

  • Seth F. Berkley, Chief Executive Officer, Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance
  • Gerald Chan, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, Morningside Group
  • Alice P. Gast, Former President, Imperial College London, and Professor Emeritus of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London
  • S. “Kris” Gopalakrishnan, Co-founder, Infosys; Chairman, Axilor Ventures
  • Toni Hoover, Director, Strategy Planning and Management, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
  • Johan Rockström, Director, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Professor, Earth System Science, University of Potsdam
  • Paul Stoffels, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman, Galapagos NV; Former Chief Scientific Officer, Johnson & Johnson

Emeriti

Chairs Emeriti

  • Jerry Hultin (2019-2024), Chair and Co-Founder, Global Futures Group, LLC
  • Paul Horn (2016-2019), Executive Chair and Founding Partner, Venly; Distinguished Scientist in Residence, New York University; former Senior Vice Provost for Research, New York University; former Senior Vice President and Director of IBM Research
  • Nancy Zimpher (2011-2016), Chancellor Emeritus, The State University of New York
  • John E. Sexton (2007-2011), Former President, New York University
  • Torsten N. Wiesel (2001-2006), Nobel Laureate; President Emeritus and Vincent and Brooke Astor Professor Emeritus, The Rockefeller University; former Secretary-General, Human Frontier Science Program Organization

President Emeritus

  • Ellis Rubinstein, Former President and Chief Executive Officer, The New York Academy of Sciences

President’s Council

  • Peter Agre, Nobel Laureate; University Professor and Director, Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute; Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, Bloomberg School of Public Health
  • Richard Axel, Nobel Laureate; University Professor, Columbia University; Investigator, HHMI
  • David Baltimore, Nobel Laureate; Former President, Caltech
  • Etienne-Emile Baulieu, Former President, French Academy of Sciences
  • Len Blavatnik, Founder, Access Industries
  • Irina Bokova, Director General, United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
  • Michael S. Brown, Nobel Laureate; Professor of Molecular Genetics, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
  • Linda Buck, Nobel Laureate; Investigator, HHMI; Member of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
  • Karen E. Burke, Dermatologist and Research Scientist; Honorary Life Governor, The New York Academy of Sciences
  • Thomas R. Cech, Nobel Laureate; Distinguished Professor, University of Colorado Boulder
  • Martin Chalfie, Nobel Laureate; University Professor of Biological Sciences, Columbia University
  • Aaron J. Ciechanover, Nobel Laureate; Distinguished Research Professor, Tumor and Vascular Biology Research Center, Faculty of Medicine, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Israel
  • Kenneth L. Davis, President and CEO of the Mount Sinai Health System in New York City
  • Peter Doherty, Nobel Laureate; Researcher, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital (Memphis, TN); Researcher, the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Melbourne
  • Mikael Dolsten, President, Worldwide Research and Development; Senior Vice-President, Pfizer Inc.
  • Jan Eliasson, Former Deputy Secretary-General to the United Nations
  • Jerome I. Friedman, Nobel Laureate; Institute Professor & Professor of Physics, Emeritus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Joseph Goldstein, Nobel Laureate; Chairman, Molecular Genetics, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
  • S. Kris Gopalakrishnan, Chairman, Axilor Ventures / Co-founder Infosys
  • Glenda Greenwald, President, Aspen Brain Forum Foundation
  • William A. Haseltine, President, The Haseltine Foundation for Medical Sciences and the Arts; Chairman, Haseltine Global Health, LLC
  • Hon. Jerry MacArthur Hultin, Senior Presidential Fellow, New York University; President Emeritus, Polytechnic Institute of NYU; Former Under Secretary of the Navy
  • Eric Kandel, Nobel Laureate; Professor, Physiology and Cell Biology, Columbia University
  • Kiyoshi Kurokawa, Former Science Advisor to the Prime Minister of Japan; Professor, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS)
  • Gregory Lucier, Chief Executive Officer, Corza Health
  • Roderick MacKinnon, Nobel Laureate; John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Professor, Rockefeller University; Investigator, HHMI
  • Richard Menschel, Senior Director, Goldman Sachs
  • Ronay Menschel, Chairman of the Board, Phipps Houses; Board of Overseers, Weill Cornell Medical College
  • John F. Niblack, Former President, Pfizer Global Research & Development; Honorary Life Governor, The New York Academy of Sciences
  • Paul Nurse, Nobel Laureate; Former President, The Rockefeller University; Former President, The Royal Society, London; Chief Executive, The Francis Crick Institute
  • Yoshinori Ohsumi, Nobel Laureate; Professor, Institute of Innovative Research, Tokyo Institute of Technology (IIR)
  • Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Nobel Laureate; Former President, the Royal Society
  • Richard Roberts, Nobel Laureate; Chief Scientific Officer, New England Biolabs
  • James E. Rothman, Nobel Laureate; Yale University School of Medicine, Fergus F. Wallace Professor of Cell Biology and Professor of Chemistry; Chairman, Department of Cell Biology; Director, Nanobiology Institute
  • Bengt Samuelsson, Nobel Laureate; Professor, Medical and Physiological Chemistry, Karolinska Institute; Former Chairman, The Nobel Foundation
  • Ismail Serageldin, Director, Bibliotheca Alexandrina, The Library of Alexandria, Egypt
  • Phillip A. Sharp, Nobel Laureate; Director, The McGovern Institute, MIT Center for Cancer Research
  • Feike Sijbesma, CEO/Chairman of the Managing Board, Royal DSM
  • Michael Sohlman, Former Executive Director, The Nobel Foundation
  • Paul Stoffels, Chief Scientific Officer, Johnson & Johnson; Member of the Johnson & Johnson Executive Committee and Management Committee; Worldwide Co-Chairman, Pharmaceuticals Group
  • Jack W. Szostak, Nobel Laureate; Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Professor of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University; Alex A. Rich Distinguished Investigator, Department of Molecular Biology, Massachusetts General Hospital
  • Marc Tessier-Lavigne, Former President, Stanford University
  • Craig B. Thompson, President and CEO, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
  • Shirley Tilghman, President Emerita/Professor of Molecular Biology, Princeton University
  • Frank Walsh, Chief Executive Officer, Ossianix, Inc.
  • George Whitesides, Woodford L. & Ann A. Flowers University Professor, Harvard University
  • Torsten N. Wiesel, Nobel Laureate; Chairman Emeritus, The New York Academy of Sciences; Former Secretary General, Human Frontier Science Program Organization; President Emeritus, Rockefeller University
  • Frank Wilczek, Nobel Laureate; The Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics, MIT
  • Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker, Secretary General, Human Frontier Science Program; Former Secretary General, European Research Council; Former President, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Germany
  • Andrew Witty, Former Chief Executive Officer, GlaxoSmithKline
  • Tan Sri Zakri Abdul Hamid, Science Adviser to the Prime Minister of Malaysia
  • Elias Zerhouni, Former Head of Global Research and Development, Sanofi
  • Guangzhao Zhou, Former Chairman, Chinese Association for Science and Technology

Board Voices

Board Spotlight