Susan Desmond-Hellmann, the first woman chancellor of the University of California at San Francisco, was named chief executive officer of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. When she begins her new job in May 2014, she will be the first person without ties to Microsoft, the technology giant founded by Bill Gates, to lead the foundation.
At the Gates Foundation, Dr. Desmond-Hellmann will oversee at $40 billion endowment that make grants in public health, education, and to fight poverty around the world. Among the programs of the foundation is the Gates Millennium Scholars program which grant full-tuition scholarships to 1,000 minority college students each year. Since 2000, the program has awarded over $763,628,869 in scholarships.
Bill Gates stated, “Sue’s background in public health policy, research and development, and higher education make her an exceptional fit for this role.”
From 1995 to 2009, Dr. Desmond-Hellmann worked for Genetech and was promoted to supervise all pharmaceutical clinical trials for the company. She was named chancellor of the University of California at San Francisco in 2009.
Dr. Desmond-Hellmann holds a bachelor’s degree and a medical degree from the University of Nevada at Reno. She earned a master of public health degree at the University of California at Berkeley.