Alumni Elect Five to Board of Overseers

Newly selected President of the Harvard Board of Overseers Richard E. Oldenburg ’54 announced the appointment of five new Overseers to the University’s second highest governing board during Commencement exercises earlier this month.

The five were elected to six-year terms by alumni this spring from a field of eight candidates nominated by the Harvard Alumni Association (HAA).

Leading the election results was Harold H. Koh ’75 with 20,519 votes out of 33,424 votes cast—a participation rate of 16.5 percent amid eligible voters.

Also elected were Susan Graham Harrison ’64, Paul A Buttenwieser ’60, Bruce M. Alberts ’60 and Deborah C. Wright ’79.

The new Overseers replace outgoing Overseers John C. Baldwin ’71, Peter C. B. Bynoe ’72, Jack R. Harrison ’55, Lisa Henson ’82 and outgoing Board President Sharon E. Gagnon.

Harold Hongju Koh ’75:

Koh, an assistant secretary of state during the Clinton Administration, presently serves as the Smith Professor of International Law at Yale Law School and director of the school’s Schell Center for International Human Rights.

He clerked for both Judge Malcolm R. Wilkey of the U.S. Court of Appeals and Justice Harry A. Blackman of the United States Supreme Court and later served as a lawyer with the U.S. Department of Justice.

In 1997, the Asian American Bar Association of New York named Koh its “Outstanding Lawyer of the Year” and he was recognized by American Lawyer magazine as one of the country’s 45 leading public sector lawyers under the age of 45.

Susan Graham Harrison ’64:

Harrison currently teaches at UC-Berkeley, where she is the Chen Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. She also does work with the San Francisco-based CompuMentor, one of the nation’s leading nonprofit technology organizations that provides more than 23,000 organizations with low-cost software and technical volunteers and consultants.

She is also a former director of the HAA.

Paul A. Buttenwieser ’60:

Buttenwieser and his wife, Catherine, founded the Family-to-Family Project, an organization that works to address the problems of homeless families in the Boston area.

In 1997, he and his wife endowed a University Professor Chair—the special category of endowed positions established in 1935 as Harvard’s highest professorial distinction.

Buttenwieser is also a John Harvard Fellow and chair of the American Repertory Theatre’s advisory board.

He has written two books, “Free Association,” a novel about psychoanalysis, and “Their Pride and Joy,” an autobiographical novel about a large Jewish family in New York.

Bruce M. Alberts ’60:

Alberts is the president of the National Academy of Sciences and chair of the National Research Council, the principal operating arm of the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering.

He is particularly well known for his extensive molecular analyses of the protein complexes that allow chromosomes to be replicated.

Alberts also works with educational projects such as City Science, a program seeking to improve science teaching in San Francisco elementary schools.

He is a principal author of popular college text The Molecular Biology of the Cell.

Deborah C. Wright ’79:

Wright, the Chief Executive Officer of Carver Bancorp Inc., the U.S.’s largest minority-run financial institution, formerly taught at the Columbia School of Architecture.

Wright was also a member of the Honorary Committee for the Harvard Law School’s 2000 Celebration of Black Alumni.

Prior to joining Carver, Wright served as president of the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone Development Corporation, a Federal initiative designed to revitalize distressed communities, and as New York’s commissioner of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development.

Overseers typically only serve one term.

—Researcher Risa Kaplan contributed to the reporting of this article.

—Staff writer Garrett M. Graff can be reached at ggraff@fas.harvard.edu.