New Trustees

New trustees: Eads, Farmer, Kahn, and Monserrate, from top. Courtesy University Secretary

Ralph Eads III '81, Paul Farmer '82, Peter J. Kahn J.D. '76, and Martha Monserrate B.S.C.E. '81, M.S.E. '82 are the newest members of Duke's board of trustees. They began serving six-year terms this summer.

Eads is vice chair of Jefferies & Company Inc., a U.S.-based investment bank. He chairs the firm's global-energy section, advising clients on the sale and purchase of oil and gas assets. He also serves on the board of the American Clean Skies Foundation, a nonprofit charitable organization that provides information about environmental and energy issues.

Farmer, a physician, has worked in infectious-disease control and medical anthropology for more than two decades. He is the founding director of Partners In Health, an international nonprofit organization that provides direct health-care services, conducts research, and advocates on behalf of those who are sick and living in poverty. His work is the subject of Pulitzer Prize-winner Tracy Kidder's book Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World, the summer reading for Duke's Class of 2004.

Kahn, a veteran lawyer in the field of international law, is a partner with the Washington firm of Williams & Connolly. His international-law practice entails a wide range of civil and criminal litigation matters, including cases involving theft of trade secrets, internal corporate investigations, fraud, and tax evasion. Kahn, who has served as chair of the Duke Law School's board of visitors, received the Charles A. Dukes Award for Outstanding Volunteer Service from the Duke Alumni Association (DAA) in 2005.

Monserrate is a professional engineer and president and founder of the consulting firm Environmental Excellence Engineering. She is president and founder of the Given Limb Foundation, which supports the development of prosthetics and adaptive devices for amputees. Monserrate was inspired to start the foundation by her brother-in-law, who served in Iraq, and biomedical-engineering graduate student and veteran Jonathan Kuniholm, who was injured in Iraq and develops prosthetics at Duke.

Hardy Vieux '93, Sunny Kantha '09, and James McDonald J.D. '09 will serve as observers on the board, representing the DAA and the undergraduate and graduate student communities, respectively. Observers attend board meetings and serve on committees but do not vote.

Vieux is the president-elect of the DAA. He is a lawyer at Blank Rome in Washington and has been active in a number of alumni activities. Kantha served as executive vice president of Duke Student Government as an undergraduate. He is an investment banker with Morgan Stanley in New York. McDonald is serving as a clerk for a U.S. District Court judge in New York.

Ann Pelham '74, current president of the DAA, who has been an observer on the board for the past two years, became a voting member on July 1. Xing Zong A.M. '07 and Ryan Todd '08, the graduate and undergraduate student representatives, respectively, who were observers last year, now have voting membership—Zong for one year, Todd for two.