Board of Trustees

Peter Blum, WPF Chair, is Founding Partner and President of Colrain Capital, formerly Mayo Capital Partners.  Peter was previously managing director, portfolio manager, and senior client service manager for the U.S. Active Strategy of Grantham, Mayo, Van Otterloo & Co. and a member of the Management Committee. Prior to GMO, Peter was Managing Director and manager of the Boston Equity Unit, at Salomon Brothers.  He is a graduate of Trinity College, where he was a member of the Board of Trustees and currently serves on the Investment Committee, and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.  He serves on the Board of Trustees for the Concord Conservatory of Music, and the Norman Rockwell Museum.

Anat Biletzki, WPF Vice Chair, is the Albert Schweitzer Professor of Philosophy at Quinnipiac University and Professor of Philosophy at Tel Aviv University. She has traveled widely, as a visiting scholar/professor at Cambridge University, Harvard University, the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, Bergen University, Boston University, MIT, and the National Humanities Center. Professor Biletzki’s publications include Paradoxes(1996), Talking Wolves: Thomas Hobbes on the Language of Politics and the Politics of Language (1997), What Is Logic? (2002), (Over)Interpreting Wittgenstein (2003), and articles on Wittgenstein, Hobbes, analytic philosophy, political thought, and human rights. From 2001 to 2006 she was chairperson of B’Tselem – the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories – and was nominated among the ‘1,000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize 2005.’

Andy Evans, WPF Board Treasurer, retired as CFO at Wellesley College in 2013. Since then, he has served as a Senior Adviser/Higher Education Executive Search with Koya Leadership Partners, was a search and management consultant to the Coalition for College, and is currently serving as a consultant with CambridgeConcord Associates to Kenyon College. During his career in financial management, Andy held many senior leadership positions in higher education and was a U.S. Foreign Service officer for the Agency for International Development.  Andy has served on a number of boards supporting higher education and was a commissioner of CIHE/NEASC, the regional accrediting association for institutions of higher education in New England.   Andy is a graduate of the College of William and Mary, holds an M.B.A. in Information Systems from George Washington University and is a CPA (inactive).

Dr. Nawal Nour, WPF Secretary, is the Director of the Ambulatory Obstetrics Practice at the Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA, andAssociate Professor at Harvard Medical School. She is an expert on health and policy issues regarding female genital cutting and a board certified Obstetrician/Gynecologist, and established the African Women’s Health Center to provide health and outreach programs to the African community in Boston.

Dr. Elizabeth Adelman is a researcher and practitioner working in the field of forced migration and education. Her research explores the intersection of global strategies, national policies and local experiences as they relate to the provision of education to students in fragile and conflict-affected states. Her current work focuses on the experience of and supports for teachers working conflict settings and how they understand their role and responsibilities with regards to the refugee and displaced learners in their classrooms. Elizabeth has over 15 years of experience working in settings throughout Africa, Asia, Latin American and the Middle East. She is a faculty member at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Eileen Babbitt is Professor of International Conflict Management Practice at the Fletcher School, Faculty Associate of the Program on Negotiation at the Harvard Law School, and member of the Council on Foreign Relations. In addition to her research on identity-based conflicts, post-conflict coexistence and trust-building, and human rights concerns and peacebuilding, she has extensive experience as a facilitator and trainer.

Jacqueline Bhabha is the Jeremiah Smith, Jr. lecturer in law at Harvard Law School, the Director of Research at the Francois Bagnoud Xavier Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard and the University Adviser on Human Rights Education to the Provost at Harvard University. She is also a lecturer on public policy at Harvard Kennedy School.

Deborah Chasman is Coeditor of Boston Review. Prior to that she worked at Beacon Press (1989-2002) where she developed the list in race, ethnicity, and social justice before becoming Editorial Director. She has served as a judge for the National Magazine Awards and the Pulitzer Prize.

J. Bryan Hehir is the Parker Gilbert Montgomery Professor of the Practice of Religion and Public Life at Harvard Kennedy School, and Secretary for Health Care and Social Services in the Archdiocese of Boston. His research and writing focus on ethics and foreign policy and the role of religion in world politics and in American society. He is affiliated with the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations.

Matthew Henshon is a founding partner at Henshon Klein, LLP. He served as Special Assistant and Senior Advisor to Senator Bill Bradley during his campaign for the Presidency (2000), assisting with political, policy, and fundraising issues. He has published on law, business, and politics.

Monik C. Jiménez is Associate Epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She received her master’s and doctoral degrees from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a Certificate in Oral Epidemiology from Harvard School of Dental Medicine. Her work is focused on addressing inequities in cardiovascular disease by intersectional identities among historically oppressed populations. Her work has examined the combined impact of race/ethnicity and sex in understanding the role of socioeconomic and behavioral factors in predicting, mediating and modifying inequities in stroke. She is the recipient of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital’s Minority Faculty Career Development and the H. Richard Nesson Fellowship and Health Equity Innovation Grant to examine factors that impact the cardiovascular health of patients who have experienced incarceration and identify ways to support respectful patient-clinician communication. She is an elected Fellow of the American Heart Association and is the Chair of the Mid-Career Committee of the national Council Operations Committee. She is also Program Director of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital STARS program and course director of “Cardiovascular Epidemiology” and “Mass Incarceration and Health in the US” at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Melissa Nobles is the Kenan Sahin Dean of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, and Professor of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Nobles’ research and teaching have focused on the comparative study of racial and ethnic politics, and issues of retrospective justice. Her current research centers on constructing a database of racial killings in the American South, 1930–1954. Nobles served as the Associate Chair of the MIT Faculty from 2007–2009 and Vice-President of the American Political Science Association, 2013-14.

Rabbi Jeffrey A. Summit, Ph.D. holds an appointment as Research Professor in the Department of Music and Judaic Studies at Tufts University. He is a Senior Consultant for Hillel International directing the project “Living Our Values.” He holds emeritus appointments at Tufts as Emeritus Neubauer Executive Director of Tufts Hillel and Emeritus Jewish Chaplain. His research and writing focus on music and identity, music and spiritual experience, music and advocacy, and the impact of technology on the transmission of tradition.