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Louise Henry Bryson: Standard-Bearer

“In philanthropy, you vote with your feet. In order to demonstrate how deeply I believe in a project, I add my contribution, then I talk to others who I think might be interested in joining me.”

A dedicated member since 2010, Louise Bryson has exemplified service to and support of the �����Ƶ in numerous ways. She is one of the �����Ƶ’s most generous donors with gifts exceeding $7 million. The capstone of her support is the John E. Bryson Director of Science, Engineering, and Technology, which she endowed in honor of her husband’s lifelong legacy of work on energy and the environment. She has also provided crucial support to projects such as Rethinking the Humanitarian Health Response to Violent Conflict and Meeting the Challenges of the New Nuclear Age. In addition, she is a loyal donor to the Annual Fund, giving every year since 2011, and is a charter member of the Minerva Society, with a bequest of $1 million.

In addition to her own giving, Louise has played a role in encouraging others to contribute to the �����Ƶ’s initiatives. As Chair of the Development and Communications Committee, she led the institution through the first years of its $100 million capital campaign as one of its top fundraisers. As co-chair of the public phase of the campaign, she helped the �����Ƶ exceed its goal six months ahead of schedule. “In philanthropy, you vote with your feet. In order to demonstrate how deeply I believe in a project, I add my contribution, then I talk to others who I think might be interested in joining me.”

Louise’s contributions to the �����Ƶ are far greater than her financial support and fundraising. She has invested her time and energy through service on the Board of Directors, Trust, Nominating Committee, and Los Angeles Program Committee. She was a member of the Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences and the Commission on the Arts, and now serves on the advisory committee for the Humanities, Arts, and Culture program area.

During her career in media that spanned three decades, she produced documentaries for public television, was a member of the PBS National Board, a founding board member and Life Trustee of Southern California Public Radio, and served as President of Distribution for Lifetime Entertainment Services and Chair of the Public Media Group of Southern California.

She was on the boards of the California Community Foundation, California Institute of the Arts, the Huntington Memorial Hospital, and Second Stage Theater, and was Chair of the J. Paul Getty Trust.

Her contributions to the �����Ƶ have been recognized with the Founders Award and the Distinguished Leadership Award.
 

Frances Hellman: Science Advocate

“One of my greatest joys is supporting and empowering young scientists. . . . My family has been providing fellowships to early career scientists for the past thirty years. Fellowships at this career stage enable them to bring creativity to their work, explore new areas of research, or collect primary data that is necessary to successfully compete for future funding in a very competitive environment.”

Elected to the �����Ƶ in 2013, Frances Hellman is a distinguished physicist, specializing in studying the thermodynamic properties of novel solid materials. She has served as Chair of the Physics Department and Dean of Mathematical and Physical Sciences at UC Berkeley, as well as President of the American Physical Society. She serves as Chair of the Hellman Foundation, which makes grants in support of science, innovation, creativity, and the arts, with a focus on building equity and opportunities.

The �����Ƶ is a beneficiary of the Hellman Foundation through the Hellman Fellowship in Science and Technology Policy, which was initiated by Frances’s parents, Warren and Chris Hellman, in 2007. To date, the �����Ƶ has had thirteen extraordinary young scientists who have served as Hellman Fellows, including current Fellow Kelsey Schuch. In this career-building role, Hellman Fellows collaborate with members, contribute to �����Ƶ projects, and help develop policy recommendations. The Hellman Fellowship has helped to launch successful and influential careers in organizations such as the White House, the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and the National Science Foundation, in addition to senior program roles at the �����Ƶ. The Hellman Foundation recently approved a grant to create an endowment for this program.

Frances’s support of the Hellman Fellowships has had an enormous impact on the work of the �����Ƶ’s Science, Technology, and Engineering program area. In recent years, Hellman Fellows have contributed significantly to initiatives such as the Public Face of Science, Challenges for International Scientific Partnerships, and the current Commission on Accelerating Climate Action.

In addition to her philanthropic work, Frances has served on numerous science boards, including the National Science Foundation Advisory Board on Math and Physical Sciences, the National Research Council Board on Physics and Astronomy, the San Francisco Exploratorium, and the Department of Energy Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Council.

“One of my greatest joys is supporting and empowering young scientists, at all career levels, including K–12, through engagement programs such as at the Exploratorium, undergraduate and graduate students in my lab and more generally at my institution, and early career faculty. My family has been providing fellowships to early career scientists for the past thirty years. Fellowships at this career stage enable them to bring creativity to their work, explore new areas of research, or collect primary data that is necessary to successfully compete for future funding in a very competitive environment.”
 

Joanne Berger-Sweeney: Education Trailblazer

“Whatever you give away will be returned to you tenfold.”

Joanne Berger-Sweeney is the 22nd President of Trinity College, where she has worked to improve campus equity and diversity, foster community and global engagement, and prepare students for life beyond school. Elected to the �����Ƶ in 2018, she currently serves as a member of the Trust.

As the first African American and first woman to serve as president of Trinity College, Joanne is a champion of a liberal arts education and has overseen the creation of innovative programs such as the Bantam Network mentoring program, the Career and Life Design Center, and Trinity Plus, a unique liberal arts curriculum. She has connected the college more deeply to Hartford through a new campus innovation center in the Central Business District, including an innovative partnership with the technology giant Infosys.

During her time as president, she has made Trinity a first-choice destination for students, faculty, and staff. Some of the ways in which she has done this is by significantly improving student quality, student satisfaction, student retention, and gender equity in athletics. She also oversaw the first major curricular change in more than twenty years to emphasize experiential learning. In addition, she has doubled financial aid dollars in ten years and doubled the endowment over ten years to ensure a more sustainable financial future for Trinity.

In addition to her many accomplishments in education, Joanne is an inventor and an internationally recognized neuroscientist. Earlier in her career, she did proof-of-concept work on galantamine, the second-most used drug to treat Alzheimer’s disease. She became the first African American woman at Wellesley to become a full professor and was named the Allene Lummis Russell Professor in Neuroscience. During her tenure at Wellesley, she served as Director of the Neuroscience Program and as Associate Dean of the college. She has received many honors, including a Lifetime Mentoring Award from the Society for Neuroscience and the Edward Bouchet Academic Leadership Award from the Institute for Cross-Cultural Awareness and Transformative Education.

“Whatever you give away will be returned to you tenfold.” This is what Joanne’s parents told her while she was growing up, and it has guided her philanthropy and her mission as an educator and a scientist. Joanne has developed a powerful legacy that reflects her commitment to community, equity, mentorship, and education–the same values that she sees in the �����Ƶ. In testament, she became a charter member of the �����Ƶ’s Minerva Society with a planned gift in the form of a bequest intention.
 

Mathea Falco: Equity Champion

“We must work to dismantle the barriers that perpetuate inequality as well as build new supportive systems so that women have equal access to rights, opportunities, and representation. Empowering women and ensuring their voices are valued will help create a world where everyone can thrive.”

Mathea Falco is a philanthropist and accom­plished scholar with extensive experience in public health, law, and international affairs. She has been a loyal supporter of the �����Ƶ, mak­ing a gift each year since her election in 2016. This year she became a member of the Minerva Society by establishing a bequest.

Demonstrating her commit­ment to advancing gender equality and women’s rights, she made a special gift to underwrite the Women & Equality issue of ��æ�岹���ܲ�. Published in 2020, the volume cel­ebrates the one hundredth anniversary of the Nine­teenth Amendment, granting women the right to vote. The collection also addresses how this important victory for women’s rights notably left behind most Black women. With Mathea’s gen­erous support, this issue of ��æ�岹���ܲ� was pub­lished open access, paving the way for all ��æ�岹���ܲ� volumes to be made free and available online the following year.

“We must work to dismantle the barriers that perpetuate inequality as well as build new supportive systems so that women have equal access to rights, opportunities, and representation. Empowering women and ensuring their voices are valued will help create a world where everyone can thrive.”

Mathea, a leading expert on drug abuse and drug policy, is President of Drug Strategies, a nonprofit research institute she founded in 1993 with the support of major foundations. The first U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics Matters, appointed by President Jimmy Carter, she held earlier positions as Chief Counsel and Staff Director of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, and as Special Assistant to the President of the Drug Abuse Council. She was also a Fellow at Harvard University’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, a Visiting Scholar at the Center for International Criminal Justice at Harvard Law School, and Associate Professor at the Weill Cornell Medical College Department of Public Health in New York.

A graduate of Radcliffe College and Yale Law School, Mathea served on the Board of Overseers of Harvard University and the Board of Trustees of Radcliffe College. She has also served on the national boards of Girl Scouts, USA; Big Brothers of America; the International Women’s Health Coalition; the International Center for Research on Women; the Ploughshares Fund; the National Council on Crime and Delinquency; the Treatment Research Institute; and the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of Freedom House and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Her expertise in public health, law, and international affairs as well as her extensive experience in nonprofit organizations and government service make her an invaluable leader in her field and member of the �����Ƶ.
 

Nancy Peretsman: Visionary

“We hope that our philanthropic support enables the leaders of their respective organizations to innovate and explore—planting the seeds to develop promising initiatives that will contribute to the vitality of those institutions.”

Nancy Peretsman, a Managing Director at Allen & Company LLC, is an accomplished businesswoman and philanthropist. In 2022, she gave the �����Ƶ a $1 million gift to establish The Nancy Peretsman President’s Innovation Fund, which enables the �����Ƶ to explore new issues or develop initiatives before they are eligible for other funding opportunities.

Nancy is deeply committed to philanthropy. She and her husband Robert Scully established the Scully Peretsman Foundation, which primarily supports educational, medical, and research institutions, in addition to investing in selected organizations that address educational equity for inner-city K–12 populations. “We hope that our philanthropic support enables the leaders of their respective organizations to innovate and explore–planting the seeds to develop promising initiatives that will contribute to the vitality of those institutions.”

With over forty years of experience in investment banking, Nancy has served as a strategic financial advisor to many of the world’s leading consumer internet, media, and technology companies. She was an original investor in Priceline, now Booking Holdings, serving on its board from its formation to realizing a market capitalization of $100bn at the time of her retirement. Nancy has been on Fortune’s list of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Business and last year ���������Dz�’s once again named her as one of the 100 Most Influential Women in U.S. Finance. Nancy serves as a vice chair of The Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and as a trustee of the Mayo Clinic Board. She retired from Princeton University’s Board of Trustees following 24 years of service and recently stepped down from Teach for America’s National Board after nearly 20 years of service. Elected to the �����Ƶ in 2017, she currently serves on the Trust.

Nancy’s achievements in both her professional and philanthropic endeavors reflect her leadership skills and commitment to making a positive impact. Her contribution to the �����Ƶ is instrumental in fostering new ideas and developing efforts that address some of the most pressing issues in the world today.