The MIT Corporation — the Institute’s board of trustees — elected eight term members, who will each serve for five years, during its quarterly meeting held yesterday afternoon. Corporation Chairman Robert B. Millard ’73 announced the election results; all positions are effective July 1.
The eight term members are: Roger C. Altman; Leslie C. Dewan ’06, PhD ’13; Jeffrey S. Halis ’76, SM ’76; Jean Hammond SM ’86; Ray A. Rothrock SM ’78; Donald E. Shobrys ’75; Jeffrey L. Silverman ’68; and Viktor F. Vekselberg.
The Corporation also announced John D. Chisholm ’75, SM ’75 as the 2015-16 president of the Association of Alumni and Alumnae, effective July 1. As such, he becomes ex officio member of the Corporation and of the Corporation Joint Advisory Committee on Institute-Wide Affairs. He succeeds Shobrys, who will return to the Corporation for a five-year term.
As of July 1, the Corporation will consist of 76 distinguished leaders in education, science, engineering, and industry; of those, 25 are life members and 8 are ex officio. An additional 34 individuals are life members emeritus.
Life members serve without a specific term until they turn 75 years old, while term members serve for five years. Both types of members have voting rights in the Corporation. Alumni nominees and representatives of recent graduating classes also serve five-year terms. At age 75, life members become life members emeritus; while they no longer have a vote, they continue to play an active role in Institute affairs.
This year’s elected term members are:
Roger C. Altman
Founder and executive chairman of Evercore Partners
Altman earned his bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University, and an MBA from the University of Chicago. Altman was named general partner at Lehman Brothers in 1974, and returned there later as co-head of overall investment banking, and as a member of the management committee and board of directors. Beginning in 1977, he served as assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury for four years, and then as deputy secretary from 1993 to 1995. In 1987, he joined the Blackstone Group as vice chairman, head of the firm’s advisory business, and a member of its investment committee. In 1995, he formed Evercore, which now has 75 partners, 1,300 employees, and has handled more than $1.5 trillion in transactions.
Leslie Dewan
Co-founder and CEO of Transatomic Power
Dewan earned two bachelor’s degrees from MIT, in mechanical engineering and nuclear engineering, in 2006, and a PhD in nuclear engineering from MIT in 2013. She is co-founder and CEO of Transatomic Power, which is developing a molten-salt reactor that converts nuclear waste into electric power. Before earning her PhD, she designed search-and-rescue robots for a local robotics company. She was named an MIT Presidential Fellow in 2008, and the Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellow in 2010. In 2013, Dewan was named one of Time’s “30 People Under 30 Changing the World,” and one of “35 Innovators Under 35” by MIT Technology Review.
Jeffrey S. Halis
Founder, president, and CEO of Tyndall Management
Halis earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 1976. He is founder, president, and CEO of Tyndall Management, an investment firm specializing in publicly traded securities. After graduating from MIT Sloan, he joined Citibank, where he spent five years on liability management. He then became an investment banker at Merrill Lynch, specializing in mergers and acquisitions. He then operated an investment fund on behalf of GTO Inc. until founding Tyndall. Halis has served on the Corporation’s Investment Management Company Board since 2014, and served on the Development Committee from 2003 to 2006. He has also served on the visiting committee for Brain and Cognitive Sciences since 2005.
Jean Hammond
Co-founder, chairperson, and partner at LearnLaunch
Hammond earned a master’s degree from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 1986, following a bachelor’s degree in biology from Boston University in 1977. She is co-founder, chairperson, and partner at LearnLaunch, an organization that supports the growth of educational technology and innovative firms. Previously, she was founder and CEO of Quarry Technologies; founder and vice president of marketing at Axon Networks; and director of strategy for 3Com. Hammond is an active angel investor, and an active mentor at TCN, TechStars, and MassChallenge. She has served on the North American Executive Board of MIT Sloan, and as an entrepreneur-in-residence at the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship.
Ray A. Rothrock
CEO of RedSeal
Rothrock earned his bachelor’s degree in nuclear engineering from Texas A&M University, a master’s in nuclear engineering from MIT, and an MBA from Harvard Business School. In 2014, Rothrock became CEO of RedSeal, a cyber analytics company. Prior to RedSeal, Rothrock was a general partner at Venrock, where he invested in 53 companies, including more than a dozen in cybersecurity. He was the 2012-13 chairman of the National Venture Capital Association. Since 2012, he’s served on the MIT Corporation’s Development Committee. He also served on visiting committees for Music and Theater Arts (2013 to present), Nuclear Science and Engineering (2005 to 2012), and Nuclear Engineering (2003 to 2004).
Donald E. Shobrys
Co-director of the MIT Venture Mentoring Service
Shobrys earned a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from MIT in 1975, a master’s in environmental engineering from Northwestern University in 1978, and a PhD in operations research from Johns Hopkins University in 1981. Early in his career, he worked at Exxon and Chesapeake Decision Sciences, which was a pioneer in using operations research and artificial intelligence to improve supply chain management. With Chesapeake, he helped Fortune 1000 companies redesign their operations management functions with data analytical tools. Shobrys is a co-director and mentor for the MIT Venture Mentoring Service. He was elected ex officio of the Corporation in 2014, and serves on the Joint Advisory Committee and Development Committee.
Jeffrey L. Silverman
Founder and chairman of Agman Partners
Silverman earned his bachelor’s degree in industrial management from MIT in 1968. He is the founder and chairman of Agman Partners, a private investment firm. Silverman was a trader at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, where he was a long-serving director. He was an angel supporter for the MIT Evergreen Energy Fund, which resulted in a dramatic savings in energy for MIT, while leading the way for other institutions. He also provided initial funding for MIT’s “Just Jerusalem” competition, envisioning peace in the Middle East. Currently, he supports the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer through a communications outreach project. He served on the Corporation’s Development Committee from 1996 to 1999.
Viktor F. Vekselberg
Chairman of Renova Group and president of the Skolkovo Foundation
Vekselberg graduated from the Moscow Railway Transport Engineering Institute in the faculty of automation and computer engineering in 1979. At the Computing Center of the USSR Academy of Sciences, he earned his master’s degree and PhD in mathematics. In 1990, Vekselberg co-founded the Renova Asset Management Company. Since 1996, he’s served as president of the Siberian-Urals Aluminum Group, becoming chairman of the board in 2003. Vekselberg participates in numerous public organizations that support the development of the Russian economy, business, and culture. In March 2010, Dmitry Medvedev, president of the Russian Federation, appointed Vekselberg as lead organizer for the Innovation Center in Skolkovo. Since June 2010, he has been the president of the Skolkovo Foundation.
John D. Chisholm
CEO of John Chisholm Ventures
Chisholm earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT, and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He was founder, chairman, and CEO of Decisive Technology, and publisher of the first software for online surveys and of CustomerSat, a leading provider of enterprise feedback management systems. Today, he is CEO of John Chisholm Ventures, an entrepreneurship advisory and investment firm. He also serves on the advisory boards of the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship, the Gruter Institute for Law and Behavioral Research, and Spark Academy. He’s a mentor for the MIT Venture Mentoring Service and other programs. Since 2009, he’s served on the Corporation’s Development Committee. From 2004 to 2008, he served on the visiting committee for Mathematics.
