The first woman to head any Ivy League institution, Judith Rodin served for ten years as President of her alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania. During her tenure at Penn, the University tripled its endowment and rose from 16th to 14th in US News and World Report college ranking. Trained as a research psychologist, Rodin was a longtime professor at Yale University in both the School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Medicine before returning to Penn, and made important contributions to the field of behavioral medicine with research focusing on the complex relationships between mind and body. In addition to countless honors and awards in science, she has been widely published as author or co-author of books, chapters of books, and hundreds of journal articles. Her book The University and Urban Revival: Out of the Ivory Tower and into the Community recounts her nationally-recognized initiatives to transform the West Philadelphia neighborhood while Penn's President. Rodin served as a member of President Clinton's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology. In 2005 she was named president of the Rockefeller Foundation.
View a clip of her in a discussion about Philanthropy on the Charlie Rose show here.
Check out her blog, hosted by the World Bank's World Development Report 2010, "Development and Climate Change," here.
Primary Source: Jewish Women's Archive