Harvard Club of San Francisco

Claudine Gay has been elected to become the 30th president of Harvard University, starting on July 1, 2023. She has led Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences as the Edgerley Family Dean since August 2018, having served previously as dean of social science from 2015 to 2018. Gay was recruited to Harvard in 2006 as a professor of government. She was also appointed as a professor of African and African American Studies in 2007. She was named the Wilbur A. Cowett Professor of Government in 2015.

As FAS dean, Gay has guided efforts to expand student access and opportunity, spur excellence and innovation in teaching and research, enhance aspects of the FAS’s academic culture, and bring new emphasis and energy to areas such as quantum science and engineering; climate change; ethnicity, indigeneity, and migration; and the humanities. She has successfully led the FAS through the COVID pandemic, consistently and effectively prioritizing the dual goals of safeguarding community health and sustaining academic continuity and progress. She has also launched and led an ambitious, inclusive, and faculty-driven strategic planning process, intended to take a fresh look at fundamental aspects of the FAS’s academic structures, resources, and operations and to advance academic excellence in the years ahead.

Gay is a leading scholar of political behavior, considering issues of race and politics in America. She has explored such topics as how the election of minority officeholders affects citizens’ perceptions of their government and their interest in politics and public affairs; how neighborhood environments shape racial and political attitudes among Black Americans; the roots of competition and cooperation between minority groups, with a particular focus on relations between Black Americans and Latinos; and the consequences of housing mobility programs for political participation among poor people. Gay is a dedicated educator and mentor whose courses have focused on such topics as racial and ethnic politics in the U.S., Black politics in the post-Civil Rights era, American political behavior, and democratic citizenship. She is founding chair of the Inequality in America Initiative, a multidisciplinary effort launched in 2017.

Prior to joining the Harvard faculty, Gay was an assistant professor of political science at Stanford University from 2000 to 2005, and an associate professor (tenured) from 2005 to 2006. She earned a B.A. in economics from Stanford University, where she received the Anna Laura Myers Prize for best senior thesis in the department. She earned her PhD at Harvard in 1998, receiving the Toppan Prize for best dissertation in political science.

A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Gay has pursued her scholarship as a fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard. She currently serves on the boards of the Pew Research Center, Phillips Exeter Academy, and the American Academy of Political and Social Science. She also served as a member of the American Association of Universities advisory board on racial equity in higher education.

Marcella Alsan is a physician-economist studying health inequality domestically and internationally. Alsan received an AB from Harvard University, a master’s in public health from Harvard School of Public Health, an MD from Loyola University, and a PhD in economics from Harvard University. She trained at Brigham and Women’s Hospital Howard Hiatt Global Health Equity Residency Fellowship, then combined the PhD training with an Infectious Disease Fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital. Prior to returning to Harvard, she was tenured at Stanford. She is co-editor of the Journal of Health Economics and co-chair of the Health Care Delivery Initiative of Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab based out of MIT, co-recipient of the 2019 Arrow Award for Best Paper in Health Economics, the 2021 William G. Manning Memorial Award for the Best Research in Health Econometrics, and in 2021 she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship.

Ann Owens is professor of sociology at the University of Southern California. Her research investigates the causes and consequences of social inequality, with a focus on education, neighborhoods, housing, and social policy. She has particular expertise on school and neighborhood segregation. She holds courtesy appointments at the Sol Price School of Public Policy and the Spatial Sciences Institute. Ann received her PhD in sociology and social policy from Harvard University in 2012 and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality in 2012-13. Ann was a 2016-17 NAEd/Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow and is currently a recipient of the William T. Grant Scholars Award. In 2022, Ann received the William Julius Wilson Early Career award from the American Sociological Association's Inequality, Poverty, and Mobility Section.

Lee Pelton is the CEO and president of The Boston Foundation, one of the nation’s leading philanthropic organizations with $1.8 billion in assets. He joined the Foundation in June 2021, after serving as President of Emerson College (2011-2021) and Willamette University (1998-2011).

Pelton began his academic career at Harvard University, where he earned a PhD in English literature with an academic focus on 19th-century British prose and poetry. He taught English and American literature at Harvard and served as senior tutor at Winthrop House. He later served on the Harvard Board of Overseers and as a vice-chair of its executive committee. After Harvard, Pelton served as dean of the college at Colgate University and Dartmouth College.

A well-respected thought and innovation leader, Pelton was a recipient of the Life Time Achievement by the Boston Arts Academy in 2022, named as a Living Legend by the Boston Museum of African American History in 2021, and inducted by the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce into its Academy of Distinguished Bostonians in 2020. He has also received the Leader of Change Award from Trinity Boston Connects (2021), Governor’s Award from MassHumanities (2020), and the Robert Coard Distinguished Leadership Medal (2021), and was honored by the Eos Foundation with a $100,000 racial justice grant in his name (2020). He has also been frequently included on lists of civic leaders in Boston, most recently ranking 13th on Boston Magazine’s 2022 list of 100 Most Influential Bostonians in his fifth appearance on the list (2021, 2014, 2017, 2018). He was also listed as one of the 50 Most Powerful Leaders in Boston by the Boston Business Journal in 2018, 2020, 2021, and 2022.

He has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Guardian (UK), Forbes, the Presidency Magazine, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Color Magazine, Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, Diversity Journal, and countless media in America and abroad. He has been a guest on National Public Radio (NPR) as well as on NPR affiliates WBUR and GBH, and on television on CBS, ABC, and Boston’s PBS affiliate television station, GBH2. He has received honorary degrees from the Urban College of Boston, Wichita State University, Merrimack College, and Tokyo International University.