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The Foundation is governed by a Board of Directors of up to 16 persons including the President who serves ex-officio as a member of the Board. Each Director is eligible to serve up to three four-year terms. A Director is reviewed by the full Board before election to a new term.
Learn About Our Governance
Stephanie Bell-Rose is a philanthropy, governance, and corporate professional. From 2010 to 2020, she was a Senior Managing Director at TIAA and Head of the TIAA Institute, focused on economic research and organizational effectiveness in the charitable and educational sectors. Previously, Bell-Rose was a Managing Director at Goldman Sachs and founding President of The Goldman Sachs Foundation (1999-2009) with a mission to promote education and leadership development globally. She formerly served as Legal Counsel and Program Officer at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, where she started and ran the legal office. She is a descendant of the U.S. Colored Troops through her third great grandfather, who departed enslavement in North Carolina to join the Union’s forces during the Civil War. She is currently a director of the Knight Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Hispanic Scholarship Fund, and The Steve Fund, where she serves as President.
Bell-Rose was elected to the Board in 2021. She chairs the Audit Committee and is a member of the Investment and Nominating Committees.
Amy C. Falls is chief investment officer at Northwestern University, overseeing a $14.0 billion investment portfolio. A prominent voice in endowment thought leadership, she transitioned endowments from bottom quartile to top decile in less than five years in past roles at Rockefeller University and Phillips Academy Andover. With extensive experience on nonprofit and academic boards, Falls is currently a board member of the Harvard Management Company and the Ford Foundation and is the chairman of the board of trustees at Phillips Academy, Andover. She also serves on the board overseeing the investments for the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. Falls and her husband created the Amy Falls and Hartley Rogers Foundation, a nonprofit providing grants to organizations devoted to educational equity and equality.
Falls was elected to the Board in 2024. She chairs the Investment Committee and is a member of the Impact Investments and Nominating Committees.
William F. Lee is a leading trial, appellate, and intellectual property lawyer. A partner at WilmerHale, Lee has represented a variety of technology-focused clients for more than 40 years. Lee served as lead trial counsel for Harvard in the case challenging its race-conscious admissions policy. He has also served as lead trial counsel for high-profile cases representing Apple, Broadcom, and Pfizer. Throughout his career, Lee has tried more than 200 cases to judgment and argued more than 100 appeals before the U.S. Court of Appeals. Among many awards earned throughout his career, Lee was honored with a lifetime achievement award by the American Lawyer and was selected as one of the National Law Journal’s 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America. Lee is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
Lee was elected to the Board in 2024. He chairs the Institutional Policy Committee and is a member of the Audit and Nominating Committees.
Cecilia Muñoz is a Senior Advisor at New America, which she joined in 2017 to build a team on public interest technology. Previously, she served on President Barack Obama’s senior staff as Director of Intergovernmental Affairs and then as Director of the Domestic Policy Council. Muñoz was Senior Vice President at the National Council of La Raza (now UNIDOS US), the nation’s largest Hispanic policy and advocacy organization, where she led a policy team and collaborated with a broad range of constituency groups. Muñoz is a Senior Fellow at Results for America, a nonprofit that advances the use of data and evidence in policy making. She also advises the Open Society and JPB Foundations, is a trustee of the Kresge and Joyce Foundations, and serves on a number of nonprofit boards. She was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2000.
Muñoz was elected to the Board in 2019. She chairs the Budget and Compensation Committee and is a member of the Institutional Policy and Nominating Committees.
Alondra Nelson is the Harold F. Linder Professor of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study, where she leads the Science, Technology, and Social Values lab. From 2021 to 2023, Dr. Nelson served as deputy assistant to President Joe Biden and acting director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. In 2023, Nelson was nominated by the White House and appointed by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres to serve on the UN High-Level Advisory Body on Artificial Intelligence. Widely known for her scholarship at the intersection of science, technology, and society, Nelson is the author of several award-winning books including The Social Life of DNA. She was named to the inaugural TIME100 list of the most influential people in the field of AI and to Nature’s list of 10 People Who Shaped Science. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
Nelson was elected to the Board in 2024. She is a member of the Impact Investments, Investment, and Nominating Committees.
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Dr. Olufunmilayo Falusi Olopade, a practicing medical oncologist, is the Walter L. Palmer Distinguished Service Professor of Medicine and Director of the Center for Clinical Cancer Genetics and Global Health at the University of Chicago. Dr. Olopade’s innovative research in women's cancers showed that women of African ancestry can be genetically susceptible to a particularly aggressive form of breast cancer. She is an elected member of numerous honor societies including the National Academy of Medicine, American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. She served as a member of the National Cancer Advisory Board under the Obama Administration and currently serves on the boards of the Lyric Opera of Chicago and two Chicago-based healthcare companies, Cancer IQ and Tempus. She was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2005.
Olopade was elected to the Board in 2016. She is a member of the Budget and Compensation and Impact Investments Committees.
John Palfrey is the President of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Palfrey is a well-respected educator, author, legal scholar, and innovator with expertise in how new media is changing learning and education. Prior to joining the Foundation, he served as Head of School at Phillips Academy, Andover. Palfrey is the board chair of the United States Impact Investing Alliance; co-chairs the Disability and Inclusion Forum’s Presidents’ Council on Disability Inclusion in Philanthropy; and serves on the board of the Fidelity Non-Profit Management Foundation. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and serves on the governance council. And he is the former board chair of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Palfrey has served as President since 2019. As President of the Foundation, Palfrey serves ex officio on all Board committees.
Juan Salgado was elected to chair the Board of Directors in 2025. His career focus has been improving education and economic opportunities for Chicago-area residents in low-income communities. As Chancellor of City Colleges of Chicago, Juan oversees Chicago's community college system, serving more than 70,000 students across seven colleges. Under his leadership, City Colleges has worked to remove barriers to college access, strengthen program quality, and enhance student supports to create pathways to upward mobility. Previously, he served as CEO of Instituto del Progreso Latino, where he worked to empower residents of Chicago’s Southwest Side through education, citizenship, and skill-building programs that led to sustainable employment and economic stability. He is also a member of the board of the Obama Foundation and a Class C Director for the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Salgado was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2015.
Salgado was elected to the Board in 2020. He chairs the Nominating Committee and, as Board Chair, serves ex officio on all Board committees.
Dr. Mariko Silver is the President and CEO of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts where she is advancing bold initiatives in support of the institution’s commitment to advance arts for all and champion a range of artistic voices. Silver’s prior roles include President and CEO of the Henry Luce Foundation and President of Bennington College. During the Obama administration, Silver served as Acting Assistant Secretary and Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Policy for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Before that, she was Policy Advisor to Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano. Silver is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and of the National Academy of Public Administration. She serves on the boards of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.
Silver was elected to the Board in 2025. She is a member of the Budget and Compensation and Investment Committees.
Dr. Ruth Simmons is a leader in the field of academia, recognized for her focus on diversity and inclusion in education. Simmons is a Distinguished Presidential Fellow at Rice University and Adviser to the President of Harvard University on HBCU Initiatives. She served as president of Prairie View A&M University, until March 2023, and is president emerita of Smith College and Brown University, where she became the first Black female president of an Ivy League school. Simmons is the author of numerous publications including her most recent memoir, Up Home, a 2023 New York Times bestseller. She is a member of the Boards of Morehouse College, the Holdsworth Center, the Barbara Bush Houston Literacy Foundation, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Houston Branch and Hines Global Income Trust. Simmons is a member of the National Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the Council on Foreign Relations.
Simmons was elected to the Board in 2023. She is a member of the Budget and Compensation and Audit Committees.
