Rockefeller Foundation President Judith Rodin to Speak at University of Pittsburgh's 2006 Commencement April 30

PITTSBURGH-Judith Rodin, president of the Rockefeller Foundation and the first woman to lead an Ivy League school, will be the featured speaker at the University of Pittsburgh's 2006 Commencement April 30.

"Dr. Rodin is one of the world's most respected leaders in education and philanthropy and is a living model of the values that our University seeks to instill in its students," said Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg. "She also is a good friend of Pitt. During her years as president of the University of Pennsylvania, it was my pleasure to collaborate with her on a number of matters that were of mutual interest to Penn and Pitt. I found her to be a highly effective and consistently considerate colleague."

Prior to becoming president of the Rockefeller Foundation in March 2005, Rodin served as the seventh president of her alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, from 1994 to 2004. Under her leadership, Penn doubled its research funding, increased annual giving by more than 70 percent, led efforts to revitalize the campus and surrounding Philadelphia community, and initiated international projects and programs, especially in addressing global health challenges, including women's health in Saudi Arabia and India. She held faculty appointments at Penn as a Fox Leadership Professor, a professor of psychology in the School of Arts and Sciences, and a professor of medicine and psychiatry in the School of Medicine.

While at Penn, Rodin served on the President's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology and on a panel that reviewed White House security.

For 10 years, she chaired an international research network studying health and behavior for the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. She also chaired the Council of Presidents of the Universities Research Association.

Rodin came to Penn from Yale University, where she served as provost from 1992 through 1994 and held appointments as professor of psychology, medicine, and psychiatry. She also served as Dean of Yale's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and chair of the Department of Psychology.

Rodin graduated with honors with the Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology from Penn and earned the Ph.D. degree in psychology at Columbia University. She became an assistant professor of psychology at New York University in 1970, then joined Yale's psychology department in 1972.

Rodin has served on the boards of numerous corporations and organizations, including The Brookings Institution, Aetna, AMR, EDS, Comcast, Citigroup, and the Council on Competitiveness. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.

Author of 11 books and more than 200 scholarly articles on health and behavior, Rodin has earned an international reputation as a leader in the health psychology movement.

The Rockefeller Foundation was established in 1913 by John D. Rockefeller Sr. to "promote the well-being" of humanity by addressing the root causes of serious problems. With assets of more than $3 billion, it is one of the nation's largest private foundations. The Foundation works internationally to expand opportunities for poor and vulnerable people and to help ensure that the benefits of globalization are shared more equitably.

Headquartered in New York City and with regional offices in Bangkok, Thailand; Nairobi, Kenya; and San Francisco; and a conference and study center in Bellagio, Italy; the Rockefeller Foundation established the first schools of public health; provided early support in the United States for education "without distinction of race, sex, or creed"; developed the vaccine to prevent yellow fever; supported the establishment of international cultural institutions, including Lincoln Center in New York City and the Berkshire Music Festival at Tanglewood in Western Massachusetts; and funded the modernization of agriculture in the developing world, known as the Green Revolution. For more information, visit www.rockfound.org.

The April 30 commencement ceremony will begin at 1 p.m. in the Petersen Events Center, 3719 Terrace St., Oakland.

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