Diana Chapman Walsh

Diana Chapman Walsh is President Emerita of Wellesley College, leading the college from 1993 to 2007. Diana currently serves on the governing board of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, sitting on the Corporation and its Executive Committee. She recently completed service on the boards of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, which she chaired. Diana was also a trustee of the Kaiser Family Foundation, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, and the Mind and Life Institute. She cofounded the Council on the Uncertain Human Future and served as director of the State Street Corporation (1999-2007).

Diana is an author, coauthor, and editor of numerous books, including Corporate Physicians: Between Medicine and Management. She is the recipient of eight honorary doctoral degrees, most recently from Amherst College (2013), Washington University in St. Louis (2014), and Rhodes College (2016). Diana writes, speaks, and consults on higher education and leadership and the climate change.

Before assuming the Wellesley presidency, she was the Norman Professor of Public Health and chair of the department of health and social behavior at Harvard School of Public Health and, prior to that, Professor of Public Health at Boston University and associate director of its Health Policy Institute. She has published widely on social factors affecting the health of populations.