Board of Trustees replenishes its ranks with 5 new members

From left to right: William Kaelin Jr., Michael Rhodes, Mychal Harrison, William Brody, Trey Walk. Courtesy of Duke Today.
From left to right: William Kaelin Jr., Michael Rhodes, Mychal Harrison, William Brody, Trey Walk. Courtesy of Duke Today.

Duke’s Board of Trustees boasts the likes of Apple CEO Tim Cook and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver—now it’s adding five new members to the group.

The University named William Kaelin Jr. and Michael Rhodes as new voting trustees with six-year terms, according to a news release. It also named Mychal Harrison, Graduate Young Trustee William Brody and Undergraduate Young Trustee Trey Walk as observers without immediate voting power. 

The new cohort replaces trustees Elizabeth Kiss and Michael Marsicano, Graduate Young Trustees Erika Moore and Christopher Paul and Jack Boyd, Duke Alumni Association president, who all left the Board in May.

The Board has 37 members and four observers. The observers are chosen by the undergraduates, graduate students, the Alumni Association and the Duke Endowment, respectively.

Kaelin, Trinity ‘79 and Medical School ‘82, is the Sidney Farber professor of medicine at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School and a senior physician at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. His lab researches proteins that prevent tumors in order to discover new ways to fight cancer. 

He’s won several awards for his cancer research, such as the AACR-Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Prize for Cancer Research and Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research. More than 40 Lasker Award winners have gone on to win the Nobel Prize in the last three decades. Duke awarded him an honorary degree in 2018.

Rhodes, Pratt ‘87, is the group head of innovation, technology and shared services at TD Bank Group. He’s worked in finance throughout his career, including expanding the cards business for Bank of America and TD. 

Rhodes is on the Board of Visitors for the Pratt School of Engineering and the Board of Directors for the Boys and Girls Club of Delaware. 

As the president-elect of the Alumni Association, Harrison, Trinity ‘01, will serve as an observer next year. He is a senior vice president at Deloitte, and he was awarded M&A Advisor’s 40 under 40 Emerging Leaders Award in 2015.

Brody, Trinity ‘12 and Fuqua ‘19, was elected this past Spring as the Graduate Young Trustee by the Graduate and Professional Student Council. He’s the managing director for BlueDot Properties, a class investment and property management firm.

This Spring, the undergraduate student body elected Walk, Trinity ‘19, to serve a three-year term on the Board. He was involved with multiple organizations during his time at Duke, including People’s State of the University, Black Men’s Union and the Community Empowerment Fund.

Correction: This article was updated to reflect that Moore was a graduate Young Trustee, not an undergraduate Young Trustee. The Chronicle regrets the error.


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Jake Satisky | Editor-in-Chief

Jake Satisky was the Editor-in-Chief for Volume 115 of The Chronicle. 

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