How are Lyda Hill, Marilyn Hawrys Simons, and David M. Rubenstein supporting research into orphan diseases, and breakthroughs in understanding autism, breast cancer, and PTS?
About the Speakers
Interviewer
David M. Rubenstein
Chair of the Smithsonian Institution Board of Regents
DAVID M. RUBENSTEIN is a co-founder and co-executive chairman of The Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest private equity firms. He is chair of the Smithsonian Institution Board of Regents and chairman of the boards of trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the Council on Foreign Relations. He is co-chairman of the board of the Brookings Institution and has served as chairman of the board of trustees of Duke University. Rubenstein also is a trustee of the National Gallery of Art, the University of Chicago, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, and the Institute for Advanced Study. He is president of the Economic Club of Washington and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Panelist
Lyda Hill
Chairman, Lyda Hill Philanthropies
LYDA HILL is chairman of both LH Holdings, Inc., a private investment firm, and the Lyda Hill Foundation. Her varied career reflects entrepreneurial vigor, business savvy, and a commitment to balancing profit with purpose. A serial entrepreneur and avid world traveler, Hill has founded businesses in travel/tourism, real estate, and medical research. Both her business and not-for-profit endeavors seek to fund game-changing advances in science and nature, to empower non-profit organizations, and to improve both the world and the local communities of greatest importance to her: North Texas and Colorado Springs.
Panelist
Marilyn Hawrys Simons, PhD
President, Simons Foundation
MARILYN HAWRYS SIMONS, PhD, is president of the Simons Foundation, a position she has held since its inception in 1994. Simons is an advocate for the increased involvement of philanthropy in funding basic science, and under her direction, the Simons Foundation has rapidly grown into one of the country’s leading private funders of basic scientific research. Simons has more than 25 years of experience actively supporting non-profit organizations in New York City and State. She is chairman of the board of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, an outstanding United States research facility specializing in molecular biology and genetics. She also serves as chair of the Stony Brook Women’s Leadership Council. Simons supports K-12 education for underserved communities in New York City as a member of the board of trustees of the LearningSpring School, a school for children diagnosed on the autism spectrum, and the East Harlem Scholars Academy. Simons also is a board member of the Turkana Basin Institute, a research institution that supports scientific projects in the Turkana Basin of Northern Kenya.
