Presenters, Moderators, Panelists, Speakers, and Special Guests
Donald Baumer
Professor of Government
Donald Baumer has been a member of the Smith College faculty since 1977. His early work focused on employment and training policy, culminating in a book (co-authored with Carl E. Van Horn) titled The Politics of Unemployment. His most recent book, Parties, Polarization and Democracy in the United States, co-authored with government professor Howard Gold, is now available in paperback. Baumer's teaching interests and course offerings include an introductory course in American government, various courses in public policy, Congress, and most recently a seminar on environmental policy in the United States.
Nano Chatfield ’78
Chair, The Girls Foundation of Tanzania
Nano Chatfield has volunteered extensively in northern Tanzania, East Africa, and works with early stage nonprofit ventures that provide financial and organizational support to local NGOs. The Girls Foundation of Tanzania partners with local NGOs to provide intellectual and financial support for educational opportunities for adolescent girls, with the goal of developing the girls’ social, physical and emotional health, and academic success.
Judith Chen '73
Professor
Judith Chen is a former senior executive with Swiss Reinsurance Corp. She moved to Beijing in 2006 to assume the role of Business Development Head for Greater China. While at Swiss Reinsurance she helped the Taiwan government launch its first catastrophe bond in the international financial markets. Prior to Swiss Re, she was with the Bank of Boston as well as Brown Brothers Harriman for over twenty years, working in Boston, New York, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China. While in banking she began transacting deals with China in the telecom industry in the early 1990s. Since 2009, Professor Chen has turned her attention to education as well as educational consulting. She is currently professor at The Beijing Center, an association of Jesuit colleges in Beijing. She earned her B.A. from Smith College and her M.A. from Yale University and recently received a master’s degree in education from The College of New Jersey.
Jill Ker Conway
Scholar, Author, President Emerita of Smith College (1975–85)
As the first woman president of Smith College, Jill Ker Conway pledged “...to foster research and the creation of new knowledge about matters of central importance in women's lives” by helping to develop and fund women-centered projects such as the Smith Management Program, Ada Comstock Program, and Project on Women and Social Change. Well known for her autobiographies, in particular her first memoir, The Road from Coorain, Conway currently serves as a visiting professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Doris Deng '10
Investor Analyst
Doris Deng is an investor relations analyst with Phoenix Property Investors, a real estate private equity firm in Hong Kong that focuses on first-tier Pan-Asian markets. Deng’s work is in the area of investor communications, marketing, and fundraising, covering institutional investors from the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East. In her spare time, Deng devotes her energy to building a stronger Smith network in the greater China region and developing partnerships with the alumnae clubs of Barnard, Mount Holyoke, Bryn Mawr, and Wellesley in Hong Kong.
Mary Maples Dunn
Historian, President Emerita of Smith College (1985–95)
Mary Maples Dunn came to Smith after many years as a professor of history and then as dean of Bryn Mawr College. During her tenure, the curriculum became broader in scope, with five new majors and increased course offerings in non-Western and neglected American cultures. The college also constructed two major buildings, renovated many more and attracted record numbers of applicants (while holding the quality of those applicants steady). Under Dunn’s leadership, Smith raised more than $300 million and doubled the value of its endowment. When Dunn left Smith 1995, she went on to become director of the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women, then interim president of Radcliffe College and acting dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Dunn left the Radcliffe Institute to become co-executive officer, with her husband Richard, of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They retired from that position in July 2007.
Yasmine Evans ’13
Smith Student
Yasmine Evans is a senior majoring in government with a minor in public policy. She is a member of the Judicial Board, the Otelia Cromwell Day Committee, and the Student Advisory Board for the Wurtele Center for Work and Life. Evans represented Smith at the 2011 Women’s Education Worldwide Conference (WEW), hosted by Collegio Nuovo in Pavia, Italy.
Elizabeth Mugar Eveillard ’69
Chair, Smith College Board of Trustees
Elizabeth (Betty) Mugar Eveillard retired in 2003 after a 31-year career in investment banking that included 12 years at PaineWebber, Inc. as a managing director and head of the investment banking division’s retail industry group. She began her career at Lehman Brothers, achieving the title of managing director. Later, she was a senior managing director at Bear, Stearns & Co. During her career, she was responsible for client relationships and business development. Eveillard recently retired as chair of Glimmerglass Opera, is a member of the National Trustee Council of Opera America, and is a director of Master Drawings, Inc. and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. She has served on retail boards since the mid-1980s and is currently a director of Birks & Mayors, Inc. She has served on the board of dean’s advisors and the Visiting Committee of the Harvard Business School. She recently began her term as chair of Smith College’s board of trustees. Betty holds a B.A. in economics from Smith College and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. Eveillard and her husband have two daughters and reside in New York City.
Dr. Shamiram Feinglass ’90
Health Policy Expert
A native of San Francisco, Shamiram Feinglass, M.D., M.P.H., is a board certified preventionist with more than 20 years of legislative and regulatory experience in health policy. She is involved in numerous national and international health policy activities, including work with the FDA, International Consortium of Orthopedic Registries (ICOR), the Medicare Evidence Development and Coverage Analysis Committee (MedCAC), Oxford University, and AdvaMed. A former medical officer with CMS in Baltimore (Medicare), she is currently vice president for global medical and regulatory affairs at Zimmer, Inc., where she oversees strategic direction and the execution of all corporate programs in clinical affairs, market access, and regulatory affairs. Feinglass is a graduate of the Emory Schools of Medicine and Public Health. She completed an internal medicine residency at Oregon Health Sciences University, a preventive medicine residency at Emory School of Medicine, and the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program at the University of Washington. She has a very supportive and understanding daughter (Smith class of 2026), son, and husband who enable her to accomplish her every whim and desire.
April Hoxie Foley ’69
Former Ambassador to Hungary; Corporate Board Member; Trustee, Smith College
April Hoxie Foley served as U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Hungary from 2006 to 2009. In 2010, she was awarded the White Cross Medal of Honor from the Government of Hungary for distinguished service. In July 2009, she received the highest Hungarian military medal that can be awarded to a civilian. Prior to being U.S. ambassador, she was first vice president and vice chairman of the Export-Import Bank of the U.S. She worked for 17 years as an executive for PepsiCo in roles including strategic planning, financial management, and mergers and acquisitions. She worked for Pfizer and The Reader's Digest. She currently serves on the boards of Alliant Techsystems, Inc., and Xerium Technologies. She is a Smith College trustee, vice chair of its Investment Committee and chair of the Campaign Steering Committee. In addition to her BA from Smith, she holds an MBA from Harvard University. She is a widow with three children, Catherine, Giff, and James.
Ivy Lindstrom Fredericks ’81
President and CEO, Transnational Capital Corp.
Ivy Lindstrom Fredericks is founder, president, and CEO of Transnational Capital Corp., an investment bank and FINRA member firm specializing in emerging growth companies worldwide. Fredericks advises companies on public and private debt and equity offerings, mergers and acquisitions, and financial restructuring. She focuses primarily on emerging growth companies in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Fredericks has been actively working with companies and entrepreneurs in China since 2003 and travels there frequently to work with companies who are seeking to raise capital for growth and expansion.
Lile Rasmuson Gibbons ’64
Legislator, Advocate
Lile Rasmuson Gibbons is a six-term state representative in the Connecticut General Assembly, first elected in 2000. She has been ranking member of the Human Services Committee for the past ten years and also serves on the transportation and finance committees. She was appointed an assistant minority leader in 2008. Prior to being elected to the General Assembly, Gibbons was active in both local and state education, serving on the Greenwich Board of Education for nine years, including three years as chairman, and the State Board of Higher Education. Gibbons has been honored by several organizations for her efforts in advancing legislation and securing funding for their projects. She is the recipient of the Greenwich Chamber of Commerce Civic Award and the Greenwich YWCA Spirit Award. This spring, she was honored with the Women’s Leadership Award from the Connecticut Republican party. Gibbons is a trustee of the John A. Hartford Foundation in New York City and the Rasmuson Foundation in Anchorage, Alaska. Gibbons and her husband, John, have been married for 47 years. They have four adult children, six grandsons, and one granddaughter. Gibbons graduated from Smith College with a BA in economics.
Glendean Hamilton '13
Smith Student
Glendean Hamilton is a senior majoring in government with a minor in education and child study. Most recently, Hamilton completed a Praxis internship with United Neighborhood Houses (UNH) in New York City where she authored a detailed advocacy toolkit and testified before the New York City Council on behalf of UNH. Hamilton has also interned with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Partnership for Afterschool Education (PASE), and was a 2011 Urban Education Initiative Fellow.
Jane Harman ’66
Nine-term Member of Congress; Director, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
During her 17-year tenure in Congress, Jane Harman was a leading voice on national security issues, serving on the House Intelligence and Homeland Security committees and helping to craft important legislation in the fight against terrorism. Harman resigned from Congress in 2011 to join the Woodrow Wilson Center as its first female director, president, and CEO. Prior to serving in Congress, she was a top aide in the United States Senate, deputy cabinet secretary to President Jimmy Carter, special counsel to the Department of Defense, and in private law practice.
Janet Wright Ketcham ’53
Business Leader, Volunteer
Janet Wright Ketcham attended Smith College from 1949 through 1951 and graduated from the University of Washington in 1953. She spent two years in New York working for Merrill Lynch Fenner and Beane, and then returned to Seattle, where she worked as a research assistant to a psychiatrist and published a document on stress and illness, which was presented at the American Psychiatric Association. After marrying Sam Ketcham, she moved to Canada. She raised four children while serving on the board of her husband’s forest products company, helping to grow the company from a small operation to the largest lumber producer in North America. Returning again to Seattle, she became involved in the Seattle Art Museum and collected contemporary art. In the early 1990s, she established a foundation that supports girls in the developing world, with a focus on Afghanistan. She has served as a Smith College trustee since 2004.
Rochelle (Shelly) Braff Lazarus ’68
Chair, Ogilvy & Mather
Shelly Lazarus has been described as one of the most powerful executives in advertising. One of a handful of women to graduate from Columbia University with an MBA in the early 1970s, Lazarus propelled herself through the corporate world to become chair and CEO of the billion-dollar advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather in 1997. In 1999, Forbes magazine named her the fourth most powerful woman in America. Lazarus served as chair of the Smith College Board of Trustees from 1998 to 2003.
Erinn McGurn ’94
Co-Founder and Executive Director of SCALEAfrica; Principal of SCALEStudio
Erinn McGurn is the co-founder and executive director of SCALEAfrica, a nonprofit organization directly addressing the growing need for access to education, responsible shelter, clean water, and sanitation by developing unsolicited building projects within rural African communities that need design services the most. McGurn is also a licensed architect and owner/principal of SCALEStudio in New York City, working with private clients and nonprofit institutions on educational projects in East and Southern Africa. The studio seeks to transform the traditional model of architectural practice by operating on a for-benefit model with community-driven, sustainable design as the primary facilitator of social change. In 2012, SCALEAfrica was honored on “The Good List” by Architectural Record as one of the best nonprofits “building for social change.” She serves on the advisory board of the Smith College Center for the Environment, Ecological Design and Sustainability and the Smith Fund’s newly established Volunteer Leadership Corps.
Janet Clarke McKinley ’76
Former Chair of The Income Fund of America, Former Chair of Oxfam America
Janet McKinley attended Smith College when the U.S. economy was enduring the longest and deepest economic recession since the end of World War II. She graduated summa cum laude with a major in history, then spent a year in Poland as a Fulbright Scholar and was fortunate to have a job waiting for her at International Paper Company when she returned, thanks to Smith’s on-campus recruiting program. Night courses at NYU’s Graduate School of Business enabled her to meet the demands of her first job and make a successful transition to a career in the investment business at Capital Research and Management Company, managing billions of dollars of Americans’ life savings. She retired in 2004 as chairman and principal executive officer of The Income Fund of America. Early “retirement” enabled McKinley to take on a broad range of responsibilities as board chair for Oxfam America, an international relief and development organization that creates lasting solutions to poverty, hunger, and injustice. Since stepping down as chair of Oxfam in 2010, McKinley’s focus is on financial innovation to meet the needs of the world’s most vulnerable people—particularly women. She also supports the crucial role of great public universities by serving as chairman of the Berkeley Endowment Management Company.
Jane Wilson Messenger ’86
Special Advisor to the Vice President, Office of Western European Affairs, U.S. Department of State
After receiving a master’s in international relations from Columbia University in 1990, Jane Wilson Messenger joined the State Department as a Foreign Service officer in 1992. She enters her third decade with the department as deputy director of the Office of Western European Affairs, which oversees bilateral relations and participates in policy formulation for Portugal, Spain, Andorra, France, Monaco, Italy, San Marino, the Vatican, and Malta.
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy ’02
Filmmaker, Journalist
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is an Academy Award– and Emmy Award–winning documentary filmmaker. Her recent films include Saving Face, Transgenders: Pakistan’s Open Secret and Pakistan’s Taliban Generation, which aired on PBS, Channel 4, CBC, SBS and Arte and was the recipient of the Alfred I Dupont Award as well as The Association for International Broadcasting award. Obaid-Chinoy has made more than a dozen multi-award-winning films in more than 10 countries around the world and is the first non-American to be awarded the Livingston Award for best international reporting. In 2012, Time magazine included her in the magazine’s annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Alison Overseth ’80
Executive Director, Partnership for After-School Education
Alison Overseth is the executive director of the Partnership for After-School Education (PASE), a nonprofit organization that works with more than 1,600 community-based youth-serving agencies to improve the quality of after-school education programs available to young people living in poverty in New York City. Additionally, Overseth serves on various other nonprofit boards, including the Smith College Board of Trustees. She holds a master’s of business administration from Columbia University.
Farah Pandith ’90
Special Representative to Muslim Communities, U.S. Department of State
Reporting directly to the Secretary of State, Farah Pandith's office is responsible for engagement with Muslims around the world on a people-to-people and organizational level. Before joining the Department of State, Pandith served as the director for Middle East regional initiatives for the National Security Council. She was responsible for coordinating U.S. policy on Muslim world outreach and the broader Middle East North Africa initiative. She reported directly to the deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser for global democracy strategy. Pandith served on the staff of the National Security Council from December 2004 to February 2007.
Carol Rodley ’76
Dean, School of Leadership and Management, Foreign Service Institute
Carol Rodley ’76 is the dean of the School of Leadership and Management School at the Foreign Services Institute. From October 2008 to October 2011, she was ambassador to the Kingdom of Cambodia. Ambassador Rodley is a career officer in the Senior Foreign Service. Prior to her service in Cambodia, she served as a faculty adviser at the Foreign Service Institute after returning from assignment as counselor for political military affairs at the United States Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. Previously, from 2003 to 2006, she served as acting assistant secretary and principal deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. From 1997 to 2000, she was deputy chief of mission at the American Embassy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Overseas assignments have included Germany, South Africa, the Dominican Republic and Pakistan. She has been the recipient of the Foreign Service Institute’s Senior Performance Award, the State Department’s Human Rights and Democracy Award, the American Foreign Service Association’s Christian Herter Award for creative dissent, the James Clement Dunn Award for leadership, the Director of Central Intelligence Exceptional HUMINT Collector Award, and an Intelligence Community Seal Medallion.
Trudy Rubin ’65
Foreign Policy Columnist, The Philadelphia Inquirer
Trudy Rubin ’65 writes a foreign affairs column for The Philadelphia Inquirer that appears in many other US newspapers. Rubin has special expertise on the Middle East and South Asia and travels regularly to those regions; in recent years she has made many trips to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, along with Egypt, Tunisia, Lebanon and Israel. Before coming to The Inquirer in December 1983, she was Middle East correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor; prior to that she was a staff writer for The Economist in London. In 2010 Rubin won the Arthur Ross prize for distinguished commentary on international affairs, and in 2008 she received the Edward Weintal Award for international reporting. In 2001, Rubin was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for her columns on Israel and the Palestinians. She is the author of Willful Blindness: The Bush Administration and Iraq. After receiving her B.A. from Smith, with a government major, she earned an Msc. (Econ) from the London School of Economics in 1966. She was awarded the Smith Medal for distinguished alumnae in 2007.
Shirley Sagawa ’83
Co-founder of Sagawa/Jospin consultants, author of The American Way to Change: How National Service and Volunteers Are Transforming America
A prominent leader in nonprofit development, philanthropy, and community service, Sagawa has been called the “founding mother of the modern service movement.” Throughout her career, her vision for national service has inspired collaboration and bipartisan support, most recently through a coalition that resulted in the passage of the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, which increased AmeriCorps to 250,000 positions. A recipient of several national awards, Sagawa was named one of the 15 “Women to Watch in the 21st Century” by Newsweek and one of the “25 Most Influential Working Mothers” by Working Mother magazine.
Caroline Straathof DIPL ’85
Managing Director, IR Inside BV
Caroline Straathof is the owner of IR Inside, an investor relations practice focused on U.S.-listed companies based in China. She works as strategic adviser in investor and media communications with top executives and investor relations managers of her client companies. Prior to her current position, she was senior director of investor relations of Sohu.com, a Chinese Internet company, where she was responsible for a 100-plus institutional investor base, conducting solo road shows and acting as company spokesperson. Straathof started her career as news correspondent for Dutch print and television based in Beijing, China. She is a 1985 graduate of Smith’s American Studies Diploma Program.
Shehrbano Taseer ’10
Journalist, Activist
Shehrbano Taseer is a journalist with Newsweek Pakistan who devotes her energies to educating people about the dangers of intolerance. She is the daughter of the late Pakistani Governor Salmaan Taseer, a reformer who was murdered by his own security guard for speaking out against the misuse of Pakistan's blasphemy laws. Carrying out her father's legacy of tolerance in a dangerous environment, Taseer has been characterized as “one of the bravest women in today's Pakistan.”
Laura D’Andrea Tyson ’69
Professor, Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley; former Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers
Laura D’Andrea Tyson was the first woman to head the National Economic Council from 1993 to 1995, during the administration of President Bill Clinton. She is currently the S.K. and Angela Chan Professor of Global Management at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, and is a member of President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. Tyson is an economic columnist for BusinessWeek magazine and writes regularly about domestic and international economic policy issues for the Washington Post, The New York Times, and other internationally syndicated newspapers and magazines.
Catherine Webb ’70, MD
Pediatric Cardiologist, Professor of Pediatrics
Catherine Webb is a pediatric cardiologist and Professor of Pediatrics and Communicable Diseases at the University of Michigan Medical School, where she also completed her residency in pediatrics and her pediatric cardiology fellowship. She is a nationally recognized leader in telemedicine, helping to deliver pediatric cardiology services to rural medical centers in the US and abroad. In addition to her pediatric cardiology practice in the United States, she currently provides international pediatric cardiology care to children with heart disease at a charity clinic which has been developed in rural Kenya. She has also collaborated with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control to assess the incidence of congenital heart disease in China and to educate local Chinese practitioners to care for these patients. She has developed a national and international reputation in pediatric cardiology through invited leadership roles in numerous organizations including: the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Board of Pediatrics, American Heart Association, American College of Cardiology, the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, and the World Congress of Cardiology. Dr. Webb has authored multiple scientific publications and presents papers and lectures regularly at national and international meetings.
Gregory White
Professor of Government, Mary Huggins Gamble Foundation Chair, Elizabeth Mugar Eveillard '69 Faculty Director of the Global Studies Center
Greg White arrived at Smith in 1993 and was promoted to professor in 2007. White teaches courses on international political economy, global environmental politics, migration and refugees, and North African politics. He is the author of Climate Refugees or Mere Migrants: Climate-Induced Migration, Security, and Borders in a Warming World (Oxford University Press, 2011) and has authored articles in the Review of International Political Economy, Perspectives on Politics, Middle East Journal, and Middle East Policy. He became the faculty director of the Global Studies Center in 2011.
Anita Volz Wien ’62
Economic Adviser, Financial Analyst
Anita Volz Wien is one of the founders and a vice chairman of Observatory Group LLC, a political and economic advisory firm that serves clients in the financial industry. The firm, which was established in 2007, analyzes global monetary and fiscal developments that impact the financial markets. Previously, Wien was a partner of the G7Group, a macro advisory firm, and earlier she was a vice president of Oxford Analytica, a political and economic consulting firm that she joined after a 20-year career in brokerage, investment management, and commercial banking. A trustee emerita of Smith College, she is a member of the board of trustees of Prep for Prep and the Ben Franklin House Foundation (in London) and of the advisory boards of Carmel Asset Management, The Lighthouse Inc., and Foreign Affairs. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Women’s Forum, and belongs to the Economic Club of New York. At Smith, she majored in history. She received an M.B.A. in finance from NYU Business School and is fluent in French and German.
Steven Williams
Gates Professor of Biological Sciences and Biochemistry
Steven Williams earned his Ph.D. from the University of California, Davis. He has taught at Smith for nearly three decades. Williams’ laboratory activities focus on research designed to elucidate the molecular biology of the parasites that cause elephantiasis and African river blindness. Most of this research relates in one way or another to the goal of eliminating these diseases that afflict 200 million people worldwide. He and his students also study animal parasites that infect endangered wildlife.
Ling Yang ’02
Vice President, The Carlyle Group (Beijing)
Ling Yang is a vice president with the Carlyle Group, a global alternative asset management company. Based in Beijing, she is focused on private equity opportunities in China. Prior to joining Carlyle, Yang was a principal at KKR, focusing on private equity investments in the financial services, consumer, retail, and healthcare sectors in China. Prior to that, she worked in equity long-shorts investments at Tiger Asia and in investment banking at Goldman Sachs in the United States. Yang holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
Nathalie Youngerman ’14
Smith Student
Nathalie Youngerman is a junior studying economics. She most recently interned with Oxfam America, working on the group’s GROW campaign, which aims to build a better food system. At Oxfam, Youngerman compiled data across a breadth of topics. She managed a team that was charged with engaging the public and broadening the exposure for the GROW campaign through attending farmers markets and other community events. At Smith, she is the president of Students for Social Justice and Institutional Change and head of the Economic Justice Working Group. Youngerman is currently the student representative on the college’s Committee on Mission and Priorities.
