AISR: Board of Overseers

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Board of Overseers

The Board of Overseers — made up of corporate, foundation, academic, and public-school representatives with a strong interest in education reform — promotes the Institute's work and from time to time decides on its future direction.

The University Corporation appoints members to a Board of Overseers, to which the Institute is accountable. The President of the University serves ex officio as chair of the Board.

BOARD MEMBERS	BIOGRAPHIES
Honorary Chair Leonore Annenberg Philanthropist and President, Chairman, and Sole Director, Annenberg Foundation	Mrs. Annenberg is president, chairman, and sole director of the Annenberg Foundation. She has devoted most of her life to the enhancement of cultural appreciation among Americans, and is a member of the governing boards of a number of arts organizations. A graduate of Stanford University, Mrs. Annenberg is the recipient of many honors and awards, including an honorary doctorate from Brown University. Mrs. Annenberg is represented on the Board by Gail Levin, Executive Director, The Annenberg Foundation.
Chair ex officio Ruth Simmons President, Brown University	Dr. Simmons is the president of Brown University and former president of Smith College. She began her academic career at the University of New Orleans and moved to California State University in Northridge in 1977 as visiting associate professor of pan-African studies and acting director of international programs. From 1979 to 1983, she was assistant and later associate dean of graduate studies at the University of Southern California. Between 1983 and 1995, she held positions as director of Afro-American studies, associate dean of the faculty, and vice provost at Princeton University and spent two years as provost at Spelman College in Atlanta.
Larry Berger Co-Founder and CEO, Wireless Generation	Larry Berger is CEO and co-founder of Wireless Generation, headquartered in Brooklyn, New York, an education company that pioneered the adaptation of mobile technologies for teachers. Mr. Berger led the invention of Wireless Generation’s mCLASS system, which enables educators to administer early reading and math formative assessments using handheld computers and then immediately receive diagnosis and targeted instruction. Today, Wireless Generation serves more than 2.5 million children and hosts one of the largest databases of longitudinal student data in the country.
Bernicestine McLeod Bailey President, McLeod Associates, Inc.	Bernicestine McLeod Bailey is president of McLeod Associates, Inc., an information technology consulting firm that specializes in performance management and business intelligence software applications. For twelve years prior to forming McLeod Associates in 1981, she was a systems engineer at IBM. She is also currently involved in building a family gift and toy business.
Jay Ogilvy Co-Founder, Global Business Network	Jay Ogilvy is senior partner and training-program chair of the Global Business Network (GBN), where he works on scenario planning and the role that human values play in purchase decisions, telecommunications, healthcare, and education. Prior to joining GBN in 1988, he served as director of research for the Values and Lifestyles Program at SRI International and wrote on social, political, and demographic trends affecting the values of American consumers. Mr. Ogilvy has taught at the University of Texas, Williams College, and Yale University, where he earned his Ph.D. He is the author of Living without a Goal and Many Dimension Man,coauthor of Seven Tomorrows, and editor of Revisioning Philosophy.
Hilary C. Pennington Director, Special Initiatives Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation	Hilary Pennington is Director of Special Initiatives at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Pennington most recently served as a Senior Fellow at the progressive think tank the Center for American Progress and vice-chair of Jobs for the Future (JFF), a research and policy development organization on workforce development and future work requirements she co-founded. Before that, she worked in corporate strategy and public policy at Aetna and at the Boston Consulting Group. She advised the first Bush and the Clinton administrations on workforce and education policies and worked with the secretaries of labor and education to design the 1994 School-to-Work Opportunities Act. A graduate of the Yale School of Management and Yale College, she holds a graduate degree in Social Anthropology from Oxford University. Her writings have appeared in the Harvard Business Review, the Christian Science monitor, and the Boston Globe. She serves on the Institute's Program Advisory Group.
Wendy Puriefoy President, Public Education Network	Wendy D. Puriefoy is president of the Public Education Network (PEN), the nation's largest network of community-based school reform organizations, where she has helped establish numerous foundations and systemic reform initiatives. She graduated from William Smith College and holds master's degrees from Boston University in African American Studies, in American Studies, and in American Colonial History. Prior to joining PEN, she worked on the desegregation of the Boston public school system and was executive vice president and chief operating officer of the Boston Foundation, a community endowment supporting programs in public health and welfare, education, culture, environment, and housing.
Barbara Reisman Executive Director, The Schumann Fund	Barbara Reisman has been executive director of The Schumann Fund for New Jersey since 1997. The Schumann Fund makes program and policy grants in New Jersey to support early childhood care and education, environmental protection, and school innovation. From 1986 to 1997, she was executive director of the Child Care Action Campaign (CCAC), a national organization working to improve child care and early childhood education. She is the author of numerous articles and publications on childcare policy. Prior to joining CCAC, she was the director of finance and administration at the Environmental Defense Fund. She is a trustee emerita of Brown University and serves as the vice president and public policy cochair for the Council of New Jersey Grantmakers. She also serves on the Board of Trustees of Grantmakers for Children, Youth and Families (GCYF).
Ralph Smith Senior Vice President, Annie E. Casey Foundation	Ralph Smith joined the Casey Foundation in 1994 as director of planning and development and, in that capacity, helped design the Foundation's Neighborhood Transformation and Family Development initiative to help communities improve outcomes for children by strengthening families and neighborhoods. He was a member of the University of Pennsylvania law faculty from 1975 to 1997 and is a nationally recognized legal scholar and attorney, authoring briefs in landmark cases before the United States Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. During that time he also served in senior leadership positions for the School District of Philadelphia, including chief of staff and chief operating officer. In the early 1990s, he was a key advisor to the mayor of Philadelphia on children and family policy development and was the founding director of the National Center on Fathers and Families and the Philadelphia Children's Network.
Robin Steans Trustee, Steans Family Foundation	Robin Steans's primary focus at the Steans Family Foundation is education. She is a trustee of National-Louis University, a director of the Chicago Metro History Education Center, and a member of Chicago's Philanthropy Roundtable and of Business and Professional People for the Public Interest. She has made significant personal gifts to Chicago Communities in Schools, Northwestern University School of Communication, Perspectives Charter School, Scholarship Chicago, and University of Chicago Hospitals. A 1986 graduate of Brown University, she received an A.B. magna cum laude in history and Russian studies.

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