The rockefeller university

by Wynne Parry, science writer

Two new members have joined the university’s Board of Trustees: Katherine Farley, a real estate investment and development executive, and Kathryn A. Murdoch, a philanthropist interested in aligning economic and environmental health. With their elections, the board now has 47 voting trustees.

Katherine Farley

Katherine Farley

Ms. Farley is senior managing director at the real estate company Tishman Speyer, where she oversees business in Brazil and China, as well as global corporate marketing. She also serves as chairman of Tishman Speyer’s compensation committee, and as a member of the company’s management and investment committees.

She has a long-standing relationship with the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, where she is currently chairman. She served on the boards of Lincoln Center’s orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, from 1999 to 2005, and of its theater from 2002 to 2010. She also served as chairman of the Lincoln Center’s $1.2 billion redevelopment project, from 2006 to 2010.

Ms. Farley is a trustee of The Andrew J. Mellon Foundation and the Lang Lang International Music Foundation, and serves on the board of the International Rescue Committee. In the past, she has served as a member of The Nature Conservancy’s Latin America Conservation Council and on the boards of Brown University, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and the Brearley School in New York City. She received her bachelor’s degree from Brown and a master of fine arts in architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

“I am honored to be joining this distinguished board, and look forward to rolling up my sleeves to help in any way I can,” Ms. Farley says.

Kathryn Murdoch

Kathryn Murdoch

Ms. Murdoch is a philanthropist who champions organizations that are solutions-based, economically and scientifically literate, bi-partisan, and focused on people. With her husband, James Murdoch, she founded the Quadrivium Foundation, which supports projects at the intersections of several specific focus areas including natural resources, science, and childhood health. Its many initiatives include the Quadrivium Award for Innovative Research in Epigenetics, which funds research by Rockefeller scientists working in the field of epigenetics. Reflecting Ms. Murdoch’s personal interest in science communications, the foundation’s initiatives include some seeking to bring excellence in science to the public.

“Rockefeller is such a distinguished university with so many great minds associated with it,” Ms. Murdoch says. “I look forward to working to make the public aware of the extraordinary science that goes on here, both for the benefit of the university and for the public.”

Ms. Murdoch also serves on the advisory board of the Meta Research Innovation Center at Stanford, which seeks to improve the quality of studies in biomedicine and other areas, and she has been an active trustee of the Environmental Defense Fund since 2009.

After being elected a visiting fellow at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford in 2011, Ms. Murdoch was the director of ReSource 2012, a conference focused on the challenge of delivering economic growth and greater prosperity in a world of increasing resource scarcity. Between 2007 and 2011, Ms. Murdoch served as director of strategy and communications for the Clinton Climate Initiative, and prior to that, she held senior management positions in marketing, communications, and business development.