Cornell Welcomes New Trustees to Board in July

At its May 24 meeting, the Cornell Board of Trustees elected seven new trustees to four-year terms: Juliet P. Tammenoms Bakker ’83; Timothy M. Barry ’93; Douglas F. Eisenberg ’93; Adam J. Levinson ’92; Stephen T. Mong; ’92, M.Eng. ’93, MBA ’02; Allan G. Mutchnik, J.D. ’88; and Leslie A. Wheelock, J.D. ’84, MBA ’84.

Also at the meeting, Mario Cilento, trustee from the field of labor, was reelected to a four-year term.

They join recent alumni-elected trustees Paul M. Cashman ’73 and Ginger K. So ’79, and recent faculty-elected trustee Durba Ghosh, professor of history in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S), who will serve four-year terms.

All the newly elected trustees’ terms begin July 1.

Bakker is a managing director and founder of Longitude Capital, a venture capital company specializing in growth investments in biotechnology, medical technology and health solutions companies. Bakker previously served as a managing director at Pequot Ventures, where she founded the life sciences investment practice, and director of strategic planning and director of operations at Waste Management International. She began her career as an investment banker in the corporate finance department at PaineWebber (now USB).

Bakker serves or has served on the boards of several privately held and publicly traded companies.

At Cornell, her volunteer leadership has included membership in the Dyson Undergraduate Advisory Council (2009) and the President’s Council of Cornell Women (2011). She also served two terms on the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) Advisory Council (2016-22) and has been an active interviewer for the Cornell Alumni Admissions Ambassador Network.

Barry is co-founder, CEO and chair of VillageMD, a full-service health care delivery company specializing in primary care services. VillageMD, which prioritizes underserved communities, has close to 700 practices across the country and employs more than 20,000 people.

Barry has spent his career helping health care providers and their patients; he has run an independent physician association, a Medicare Advantage plan and a population health business. In 2023, Barry was named to Modern Healthcare’s Top 100 Most Influential People. Village Medical’s “New Way to Well” campaign, which is aimed particularly at seniors, won a Healthcare Marketing Impact award from Ad Age in 2023 and the TITAN Health award. Village Medical is a subsidiary of VillageMD.

In 2024, Barry was named Cornell Entrepreneur of the Year for his entrepreneurial achievement, impact on humanity and inspirational story.

Cashman is a self-employed AI software developer. He retired in 2013 after a 38-year career in systems development, during which he built a free web-based history teaching tool that’s used in more than 30 countries. He returned to the workforce as a software developer for several startups, most recently for 1up Health Inc., as a senior software engineer.

Cashman combined his interests in cats and software through mentoring student teams developing an app for the Cornell Feline Health Center; as a technical mentor at Cornell Animal Health Hackathons; and developing an AI system with the CFHC to support their national citizen-science project – a health census of the U.S. feral cat population.

Cashman’s current volunteer efforts for Cornell include managing the web community for the Class of 1973, after two terms as class president and other roles. He is a director of the Cornell Club of Cape Cod and a life member of the Cornell University Council. In 2020, he received the Frank H.T. Rhodes Exemplary Alumni Service Award.

Cilento, president of the New York State AFL-CIO, has been a member of the Newspaper Guild-CWA since 1990. His work at the NYS AFL-CIO began in 1992; he was elected president in 2011, and reelected most recently in 2020.

Cilento, who graduated in 1990 from Fordham University, has worked to harness the collective power of the state AFL‐CIO’s 2.5 million members by transforming the existing political campaign framework into a proactive year‐round legislative action network. Under his leadership, the state AFL-CIO, working with its affiliated unions, has secured several protections for workers across New York state in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court decision on Janus v AFSCME, preserving a public employee’s right to join a union and protecting their rights after they have joined.

Additional legislative victories include the historic Farmworkers Fair Labor Practices Act giving farmworkers labor rights including the right to organize, a mandatory day of rest, and the right to overtime pay.

Eisenberg is a New York City-based real estate investor who in 2011 founded investment firm A&E Real Estate; he has been involved in all aspects of A&E’s development since its founding and determines the strategic direction of the firm.

Eisenberg received his bachelor’s degree in urban and regional planning from Cornell and his J.D. from Brooklyn Law School, where he served as an editor of the Law Review.

Eisenberg serves on the boards of Montefiore Hospital, the New York Junior Tennis League and the Randall’s Island Park Alliance. He also supports the New York Urban League and the Citizens Committee for New York.

Eisenberg holds leadership roles in the College of Architecture, Art and Planning (AAP), including on the Advisory Council. In addition to his involvement with AAP, Eisenberg supports Cornell Athletics, specifically the men’s and women’s tennis programs, as well as Hillel.

Ghosh’s teaching and research focus on the history of British colonialism on the Indian subcontinent. She is the author of two books – “Gentlemanly Terrorists” (2017) and “Sex and the Family in Colonial India” (2006), as well as nearly two dozen journal articles and book chapters focusing on the relationship between colonial agents, officials and elites, and those who were colonized. Since arriving at Cornell in 2005, she has taught courses on modern South Asia, the British empire, gender and colonialism.

Ghosh has been involved with the Society for the Humanities; the Humanities Scholars Program; the Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies program; the South Asia Program; the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies; and the CIVIC collaborative that emerged out of the provost’s Radical Collaboration Drives Discovery initiative.

Ghosh is also an associate editor for South Asia for the Journal of Asian Studies, and co-chair of the 20125 Association of Asian Studies conference.

Levinson is the managing partner and chief investment officer (CIO) of Graticule Asset Management Asia, and the founder and CEO of FiSai Investments. He is also a member of the London School of Economics Investment Committee. Previously, Levinson served as CEO of Fortress Investment Group (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.; CIO of the Fortress Asia Macro Funds; and co-CIO of Fortress Macro Funds.

Levinson is a former member of the Singapore Foreign Exchange Markets Committee (2011-2019); a former member of the Board of Greater Pacific Capital; and a former member of the Fortress Management Committee (2007-2016).

Outside of finance, Levinson is an operating partner at Illinois-based Revolution Cannabis; chairs the media committee of youth sports and entertainment firm Arizona Athletic Grounds; and is founder and board member of the Detroit Children’s Fund.

Levinson endowed Cornell’s China and Asia-Pacific Studies Program (CAPS), and served on the Cornell University External Advisory Council for Internationalization (2011-18).

Mong is founder and managing director of Orien Capital Management, LLC, a New York-based privately held investment firm, and is CFO of Zaber Corporation, Inc., a New York-based real estate investment and management company.

Previously, Mong was a senior member of Citigroup’s top-ranked Managed Care equity research team. He also held positions at the Investment Banking Division of JP Morgan, Jones Lang LaSalle, URS and Foster Wheeler Corporation. He is a trustee of Horace Mann School in New York City, co-chairs its development committee and serves on its finance committee.

Mong’s giving to Cornell has spanned multiple colleges and units to support both current and long-term strategic initiatives, including interdisciplinary research, capital campaigns and scholarships. Mong currently chairs the Cornell University Council Administrative Board Committee on Development, and is a member of the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S) Advisory Council, the A&S Campaign Committee, the Cornell Campaign Cabinet and the Cornell University Council, and is the Class of 1992 Cornell Annual Fund representative.

Through the Mong Family Foundation, Mong provided the seed grant to launch Cornell Neurotech, a collaboration between A&S and Cornell Engineering that aims to develop technologies and powerful new tools needed to reveal the inner workings of the human brain.

In 2018, Mong was named a Distinguished Alumnus by the Cornell Asian Alumni Association.

Mutchnik is president of Harbor Freight Tools, a leading discount tool retailer with more than 1,500 stores and 29,000 associates in the United States. Since joining Harbor Freight in 2012, he helped establish and is a director of the Smidt Foundation, which helps to advance skilled trades education in U.S. public high schools.

Previously, Mutchnik was a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, where he practiced as a transactional lawyer for 24 years. He has served on the boards of several nonprofit organizations.

Mutchnik is currently serving his second term on the Law School Advisory Council, and was a member of the Parents Committee for FY22. In 2022, Mutchnik and his wife, Nicole, established the Mutchnik Scholarship, which awards merit-based financial assistance to a law student.

So recently retired from a long banking career, with roles in client revenue development, risk and underwriting. Most recently, she was managing director and strategy head in global capital markets, focused on supporting clients’ environmental and social aspirations for U.S. Bank. She orchestrated revenue and product opportunities and integrated an ESG risk framework.

So also served as the corporate and commercial banking diversity, equity and inclusion champion, developing and implementing strategies for inclusive growth for both career development and to support client initiatives. So fostered women’s development as founding sponsor of NYC Women’s Business Resource Group, promoting career growth through training and storytelling.

At Cornell, So’s volunteer efforts include the Cornell Alumni Advisory Board; Cornell Mosaic (2018-2023); the Cornell Asian Alumni Association, where she was a founding member; A&S Advisory Council (2015-19); the Class of 1979 Class Council (1999-present). She is also a life member and past chair of the Cornell University Council.

In 2014, So was the recipient of the Frank H.T. Rhodes Exemplary Alumni Service Award; the following year, she was an honoree of the Cornell Asian Alumni Association.

Wheelock is the founder of Wheelock Consulting, PLLC, where she serves as a tribal strategy and business adviser in areas that include federal policy and administrative law, broadband, cultural heritage, Indigenous knowledge, historic preservation and environmental justice.

In 2013, then-President Barack Obama appointed Wheelock to the post of department officer, senior adviser to the secretary and director of the Office of Tribal Relations at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, roles she held until 2017. Wheelock previously served as director of economic policy at the National Congress of American Indians, and as cultural and intellectual property manager on the National Mall transition team for the opening of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in Washington.

Wheelock served for five years on the Cornell Law School Alumni Association Executive Board of Directors, serving as both vice president and president, and was a member of the Cornell University Council, serving as chair of the Ambassador and Advocacy Program committee.

Wheelock is currently a member of the Law School Dean’s Advisory Council, the Native American Lawyers Alumni Network, the President’s Council of Cornell Women and the Public Service Alumni Network.

In 2022, Wheelock made two significant gifts to Cornell Law School: She established the Wheelock Fund for Entrepreneurship Law, a current-use program dedicated to establishing and enhancing clinical legal education initiatives focused on entrepreneurship within Cornell Tech and the broader New York City area; and as an advocate for Native American students, she helped establish the Leslie A. Wheelock Law Scholarship Fund, which will provide support for students enrolled in the J.D. program at Cornell Law School, with preference for students who self-identify as a person from a federally or state recognized American Indian tribe.