Board of Trustees adds three new members

The University announced Wednesday that three new members have joined the Board of Trustees.

Rhett Mabry, incoming president of The Duke Endowment, as well as Christopher Paul and Jamal Edwards joined July 1. The Board of Trustees, which consists of 37 members, is the University's governing body and oversees Duke's educational policy, finances and operations.

Mabry will take on the observer position given to The Duke Endowment, previously filled by Gene Cochrane, who retired as TDE president in June. This year, Paul was elected graduate Young Trustee and Edwards was elected undergraduate Young Trustee. Edwards will serve a two-year term while Paul will serve a three-year term, with both acting as non-voting members in their first year. 

In 1992, Mabry joined The Duke Endowment as associate director of health care and in 1998 was named director of the child care program. He has served as vice president of TDE since 2009.

Mabry also serves on the North Carolina Governor’s Early Childhood Advisory Council, on the board of the Southeastern Council of Foundations and at the North Carolina Center for Public Policy Research. He earned bachelor’s degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master’s degree in health administration at Duke.

Paul, who recently completed his Ph.D. in the University Program in Environmental Policy, was selected by the Graduate and Professional Student Council as a Young Trustee. He was chosen through a parliamentary selection composed of more than 150 student-voted representatives in which every graduate school was represented.

Paul also earned bachelor’s degree in environmental science, a minor in Chinese language and a certificate in Documentary Studies at Duke as an undergraduate, and was part of the Robertson Scholars inaugural class. He served in the Peace Corps as an environmental education volunteer in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, and has also led the Society of Duke Fellows, GradParents and the Duke Global Health Institute Student Council.

Edwards, Trinity ’16, was elected to the Board by the undergraduate student body this Spring. He was a Robertson Scholar majoring in global health at Duke and journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He also completed an internship in the United Nations joint program on HIV/AIDS in the Governance and Multilateral Affairs unit. As an undergraduate, Edwards served as president of the Black Student Alliance, a member of Dukes and Duchesses and a Duke Student Government senator in Academic Affairs.