Fourteen new tenure-track professors have joined the Smith faculty this year in fields ranging from physics to poetry to computer science.
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News & Events for the Smith College Community
Board of Trustees Welcomes Six New Members
The Smith College Board of Trustees welcomed six new members who will begin their governance duties July 1.
Badriyyah Alsabah, Smith College class of 2017, majored in psychology and minored in religion at Smith. While a student, Alsabah conducted research on the Middle East and also spent time abroad in Edinburgh, Scotland. President of the Student Government Association in her senior year, she will serve a two-year term on the board of trustees. Alsabah will spend the next year interning for the United Nations, first in Cairo and then in Beirut. Following her internship, she plans to return to the U.S. for graduate school.
Other trustees, who will serve four-year terms on the board, are:
Mattie Peterson Compton, Smith College class of 1972, is an Assistant United States Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, Fort Worth Division. A regular member of the Evaluation and Review Staff, Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, she received the Director’s Award from Attorney General Janet Reno in 1996 for superior performance as an Assistant United States Attorney. The recipient of an A.B. in Afro-American studies from Smith, Compton earned her J.D. degree at the University of Michigan School of Law. She lives in Fort Worth, Texas, where she is active on the boards of a number of civic organizations.
Deborah “Debbie” DeCotis, Smith College class of 1974, is a private investor with D Squared Holdings, LLC. Previously with Morgan Stanley, where she built a distinguished 22-year career and was one of the firm’s first women managing directors, DeCotis is a trustee emerita of Stanford University and has served on a number of corporate and nonprofit boards. In 2008, she received Stanford’s John W. Gardner Volunteer Leadership Award, which honors alumni whose volunteer efforts have had a significant impact on the Graduate School of Business. DeCotis received her A.B. degree in mathematics from Smith, then earned an M.B.A. in finance at Stanford. She lives in New York, Gloucester and Southfield, Mass.
Susan Greene, Smith College class of 1968, has been a senior executive in the media and telecom industries. Now retired after leading the American Solar Energy Society, she previously served in senior leadership roles at NBC, HBO, Time Warner Cable and the FCC. Greene majored in psychology at Smith, then studied in the M.A. program at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School forCommunication, and earned a J.D. degree from Catholic University. President of the Alumnae Association of Smith College beginning July 1, she lives in Englewood, Colo.
Ann Mitchell, Smith College class of 1975, is a senior healthcare executive with extensive experience in hospice management, healthcare policy, fundraising and research. President and CEO at Montgomery Hospice in Maryland, she also chairs the board of the Hospice Alliance—a hospice collaborative that supports pediatric hospice care throughout Maryland, Delaware and the District of Columbia—and serves as board director and legislative committee chairman of the Hospice and Palliative Care Network of Maryland. The recipient of an A.B. degree in economics from Smith, Mitchell earned her M.P.H. degree in hospital administration from Yale. She lives in Alexandria, Va.
Susan May Molineaux, Smith College class of 1975, is a leading cancer researcher and a drug discovery and development innovator in the biotechnology field. Co-founder, president and CEO of Calithera Biosciences, Molineaux previously co-founded Proteolix, and served for two years as that company’s chief scientific officer before becoming president and CEO. Before that, she held leadership positions at Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Praelux and Praecis Pharmaceuticals. From 1989 until 1994 she was a scientist at Merck. Molineaux earned an A.B. in biology from Smith College, a Ph.D. in molecular biology from Johns Hopkins University, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Columbia University. A director at Geron and Theravance, and a scientific advisor at Lightstone Ventures, Molineaux received the Smith Medal in 2014. She currently resides in San Francisco.