Shirley M. Tilghman, Ph.D
Shirley M. Tilghman was elected Princeton University’s 19th president on May 5, 2001, and assumed office on June 15, 2001. An exceptional teacher and a world-renowned scholar and leader in the field of molecular biology, she served on the Princeton faculty for 15 years before being named president.
Tilghman, a native of Canada, received her Honors B.Sc. in chemistry from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, in 1968. After two years of secondary school teaching in Sierra Leone, West Africa, she obtained her Ph.D. in biochemistry from Temple University in Philadelphia.
During postdoctoral studies at the National Institutes of Health, she made a number of groundbreaking discoveries while participating in cloning the first mammalian gene, and then continued to make scientific breakthroughs as an independent investigator at the Institute for Cancer Research in Philadelphia.
Tilghman came to Princeton in 1986 as the Howard A. Prior Professor of the Life Sciences. Two years later, she also joined the Howard Hughes Medical Institute as an investigator. In 1998, she took on additional responsibilities as the founding director of Princeton’s multi-disciplinary Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics.
A member of the National Research Council’s committee that set the blueprint for the U.S. effort in the Human Genome Project, Tilghman also was one of the founding members of the National Advisory Council of the Human Genome Project Initiative for the National Institutes of Health.
She is renowned for her pioneering research in mammalian developmental genetics, for her national leadership on behalf of women in science and for promoting efforts to make the early careers of young scientists as meaningful and productive as possible.
From 1993 through 2000, Tilghman chaired Princeton’s Council on Science and Technology, which encourages the teaching of science and technology to students outside the sciences, and in 1996 she received Princeton’s President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching. She initiated the Princeton Postdoctoral Teaching Fellowship, a program across all the science and engineering disciplines that brings postdoctoral students to Princeton each year to gain experience in both research and teaching.
In 2002, Tilghman was one of five winners of the L’Oréal-UNESCO international For Women in Science Award, and the following year received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Developmental Biology.
Tilghman is a member of the American Philosophical Society, the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine and the Royal Society of London. She serves as a Trustee of The Jackson Laboratory and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Sally K. Ride, Ph.D
Sally K. Ride, Ph.D., a former NASA Astronaut and the first American woman in space, is the President and CEO of Sally Ride Science, and a Professor of Physics at the University of California, San Diego (currently on leave). Sally Ride Science is a company dedicated to supporting girls’ interests in math, science and technology. The company creates programs and publications for girls that engage them and encourage their interests.
Dr. Ride grew up in Los Angeles, California. She attended Stanford University where she earned her B.S. in Physics and B.A in English in 1973, and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Physics in 1975 and 1978, respectively. Shortly thereafter, she was selected for NASA’s astronaut corps. Her first space flight was aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1983; her second was also aboard Challenger, in 1984. During those flights, she deployed communications satellites, operated the robot arm, and conducted experiments in materials, pharmaceuticals, and Earth remote-sensing.
Training for her third spaceflight was interrupted by the Space Shuttle Challenger accident. Dr. Ride served as a member of the Presidential Commission investigating the accident, and chaired its subcommittee on Operations. She then served as NASA’s first director of Strategic Planning, producing a report entitled “Leadership and America’s Future in Space.” She also created, and was the first Director of, NASA’s Office of Exploration.
In 1989, Dr. Ride joined the faculty at UCSD as a Professor of Physics and Director of the University of California’s California Space Institute. In 2001 she founded her own company, Sally Ride Science, to pursue her long-time passion: motivating girls and young women to pursue careers in science, math and technology.
Long an advocate for improved science education, Dr Ride has written five science books for children: To Space and Back; Voyager; The Third Planet; The Mystery of Mars and Exploring Our Solar System. She has also initiated and directed education projects designed to fuel middle school students’ fascination with science.
Dr. Ride has been a member of the President’s Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology and the National Research Council’s Space Studies Board, and has served on the Boards of the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and the NCAA Foundation. She is a member of the Corporate Directors’ Forum, and has served on the Boards of Veridian and the Mitre Corporation. Dr. Ride is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy, and currently serves on the Boards of the Aerospace Corporation and of the California Institute of Technology. She is the only person to have served on the Commissions investigating both the Space Shuttle Challenger and Columbia accidents.
Dr. Ride has received numerous honors and awards. She has been inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame and the Astronaut Hall of Fame, and has received the Jefferson Award for Public Service, the von Braun Award, the Lindbergh Eagle, and the NCAA’s Theodore Roosevelt Award. She has also twice been awarded the National Spaceflight Medal.
Helen Greiner
Helen Greiner is co-founder and chairman of the board of iRobot Corp. Under Ms. Greiner’s leadership, iRobot Corp. is delivering robots into the industrial, consumer, academic and military markets. She has been named the Ernst and Young New England Entrepreneur of the Year for 2003 (with iRobot co-founder Colin Angle). Selected from entrants across New England, she was cited for her experience, expertise and innovation. She has also been honored as a Technology Review Magazine “Innovator for the Next Century,” invited to the World Economic Forums as a Global Leader of Tomorrow, and has been awarded the prestigious DEMO God Award at the DEMO Conference. Her 15 years of experience in robotic technology includes work at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. She holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and an M.S. in Computer Science, both from MIT.
