The Seattle-based Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has named ANITA ZAIDI, currently director of its Vaccine Development & Surveillance (VD&S) and Enteric & Diarrheal Diseases (EDD) initiatives, as president of its Gender Equality division, effective November 2. In her new role, Zaidi will oversee a division comprised of the foundation’s Gender Equality program team and Gender Program Advocacy and Communications team and will take on responsibility for the foundation’s broader gender integration agenda, working with and across all program teams to ensure gender is being incorporated in a thoughtful way to increase impact. A pediatric infectious diseases physician who joined the foundation in 2014 as director of the EDD team, Zaidi will report directly to CEO Mark Suzman and will join the foundation’s executive leadership team.

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in New York City has announced that LORELLE ESPINOSA will join the foundation as the program director responsible for grantmaking programs aimed at advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in STEM higher education, succeeding ELIZABETH S. BOYLAN, who has led the foundation’s DEI grantmaking since 2011 and who is retiring in December 2020. In her new position, Dr. Espinosa will oversee and set strategic priorities for a $7 million portfolio focused on addressing the historic underrepresentation of Blacks/African Americans, Latinx, American Indians/Alaska Natives, and women in STEM disciplines and economics in higher education. Espinosa currently serves as vice president for research at the American Council on Education, where she has developed  a research portfolio with a focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion; promoted the use of data to close equity gaps; and helped shape the national conversation around issues of access to and success in higher education for diverse populations. She is, in addition, the author of a study of how recent legal jurisprudence is changing race-conscious policies in education; PI for a national study on the state of race and ethnicity in higher education; and served as co-chair for the National Academies’ study committee that produced the report Minority Serving Institutions: America's Underutilized Resource for Strengthening the STEM Workforce.

The Boston-based Barr Foundation has announced the appointment of LYNN HARWELL as vice president for administration. In that role, Harwell will join Barr Foundation president Jim Canales and Vice President for Strategy and Programs Roger Nozaki to provide strategic leadership for all the foundation’s work. Harwell joins the foundation from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, where since 2016 she has served as administrative director of the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research. Prior to joining the Broad Institute, she served as executive director of the Harvard NeuroDiscovery Center, where she led a collaborative research group to advance neurological disease research, as deputy to the governing board chair of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, and as manager of corporate business Development and Strategy for Warner Bros. Entertainment. 

The Providence-based Rhode Island Foundation has announced CLAUDIA CORNEJO as its new strategic initiative officer for economic security. A native of Pawtucket, Cornejo joined the foundation in 2015 from the Center for Women & Enterprise, where she was a program manager/business support specialist. Prior to joining the center, she was a business information specialist in the Business Services division at the Office of Secretary of State.

TRIPLER PELL has been elected to the boar of trustees of the New York City-based John A. Hartford Foundation. A physician with fourteen years’ experience in family medicine and as a medical consultant, academic lecturer, and children’s book author, Pell currently provides primary care mental health services at a holistic family medical practice in Toronto, consults for a local corporate wellness and executive health clinic, and teaches medical students at the University of Toronto. Throughout her medical education and training, she also maintained an interest in research and refugee health, winning awards and grants for her work and staying involved with such organizations as the Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture and Physicians for Human Rights.

The board of governors of the New York Academy of Sciences has announced NICHOLAS B. DIRKS as its new president and chief executive officer. Dirks, an internationally renowned historian and anthropologist, served as the tenth chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley and, earlier, as the executive vice president for the arts and sciences and dean of the faculty of Columbia University. He becomes president and CEO following the retirement of ELLIS RUBINSTEIN, who has led the Academy since 2002 and was elected president emeritus by the board of governors.

King Boston, a privately funded effort to create a new memorial and programs honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King and their time and work together in Boston, has announced that IMARI K. PARIS JEFFRIES is joining the organization as executive director, effective June 30. A longtime nonprofit executive and community leader, Paris Jeffries will succeed MARIE ST. FLEUR, who has guided the organization through the process of siting and approving the planned memorial to Dr. King and Coretta Scott King on the Boston Common and laid the groundwork for the establishment of the King Center for Economic Justice at the Roxbury branch of the Boston Public Library. Paris Jeffries has served in executive roles at Parenting Journey, Jumpstart, Boston Rising, and Friends of The Children, and serves as a trustee of the UMass System and on the boards of USES, Providers Council, and Governor Charlie Baker’s Black Advisory Commission.

And after an extensive nationwide search, the boards of directors of People For the American Way and People For the American Way Foundation have announced BENJAMIN TODD JEALOUS as the next president of both organizations, succeeding MICHAEL KEEGAN, who has served as president of the organizations for eleven years and will continue to serve as a member of both boards. A longtime leader, coalition builder and campaigner for social justice, Jealous was chosen in 2008 as the youngest-ever president and CEO of the NAACP. During his tenure, he the organization doubled its budget, grew its online activist base by hundreds of thousands, and increased its number of donors from 16,000 to 132,000. Jealous also positioned the organization at the forefront of the Trayvon Martin case, the fight against voter ID laws, and protests over the New York Police Department’s stop-and-frisk policies; pushed the organization to fight more aggressively for marriage equality; led efforts to register 374, 000 voters and mobilize 1.2 million new voters to the polls; and worked to pass key legislative accomplishments during President Barack Obama's first term, including the Affordable Care Act. In 2013, the Baltimore Sun named him Marylander of the Year for his work on marriage equality, the death penalty, and the DREAM Act.