At its 2022 Annual Meeting of Members on November 29, the National Institute of Social Sciences elected six new members to the Board of Trustees.
Jenny Young du Pont
A lawyer and a nonprofit executive leader, Jenny has more than 25 years of experience working with many philanthropic organizations. She is currently Of Counsel to the law firm Wolf Haldenstein in New York City, and for many years prior she worked as a nonprofit executive leader in New York. Jenny was the Executive Director of Miracle House of New York, Vice President of Corporate Relations at American Corporate Partners, and CEO & President of the Garden Conservancy. For more than 25 years, Jenny also has volunteered her time and talents to many nonprofit organizations. She has served as a Trustee, Director, and Class Officer for Phillips Exeter Academy, and for many years as a Class Officer for Princeton University. She currently serves as a board member of the American Friends of the British Museum as well as the American Patrons of the National Library and Galleries of Scotland. She also chairs the Advisory Council of the Conservation Law Foundation and is a member of the Board of Advisors of the Untermyer Gardens Conservancy. Jenny graduated with high honors from Phillips Exeter Academy, earned her A.B. in History, cum laude, from Princeton University, and earned her Juris Doctor and Master of Science in Foreign Affairs, magna cum laude, from Georgetown University.
Dianne Melodia
Dianne (French) Melodia, of Southampton, Manhattan and Pittsburgh, is a former professional dancer, choreographer, arts educator and world traveler. Dianne received a masters degree in choreography from the Choreographic Institute in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, a degree that she earned while simultaneously learning the language. She was the resident choreographer and Artistic Director of the Pittsburgh International Folk Theater during the 1990s, and received grants from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts to create choreographic works and to teach dance and cultural awareness in the Pittsburgh Public Schools. She trained and directed the “Otets Paisi” performance ensemble for many years, while also starting to teach and choreograph musical theater at an independent school. Dianne has been a guest choreographer for, and a member of the Board of Directors of, her college performance organization for the past half dozen years. As a parent and arts educator in New Jersey, Dianne also served on the Board of Princeton Ballet School, Princeton GirlChoir and on an advisory council to the theater department at Princeton Day School. Dianne also worked for a few years for the State of New Jersey in the Department of Addiction Services. Her most consistent and meaningful professional commitment for the past three decades, however, has been Dianne’s role as the Co-Director of PAC (performing arts camp) in Sewickley, Pennsylvania. She has directed and choreographed nearly 200 musicals and played the role of a lifetime as teacher, mentor, friend and confessor to over 2,000 children.
Lauren Moriarty
Lauren was born in Queens, NY and grew up in the western suburbs of Philadelphia. She holds a BA in Creative Writing and History from Wheaton College (MA). After college she began a career in advertising and PR in NYC, focusing on copywriting in direct marketing in what now would be considered start-ups. During this time she also completed all the academic work required for an MA in Elementary Education from Hunter College in NYC. Lauren dedicated many years to raising her 3 children with her husband Neil and was very involved in volunteer work at their schools, as well as organizations such as Home of The Sparrow, and Horizons at Episcopal Academy. She continues to do free-lance editing and pro-bono work for high school students needing guidance with the college application process.
Neil Moriarty
A native of Holyoke, Massachusetts, Neil earned a Bachelor’s degree in History from the University of Massachusetts/Amherst. After college, Neil began a career on Wall Street, working in fixed income trading at PaineWebber, Prudential Securities and Chase Securities. While looking to focus skills developed in the capital markets, Neil shifted his career to asset management, joining Deutsche Asset Management in Philadelphia. Neil assumed more leadership roles subsequent to a merger with Aberdeen Asset Management in 2005, joined MacKay Shields Asset Management in 2018 and is currently a Co-Head of MacKay’s Global Fixed Income business. Neil has been a lifelong student of history with a particular passion for the Enlightenment Era and its philosophical antecedents of the U.S. Constitution. Neil is also a dedicated genealogist to which he devotes significant research.
Victoria Tomkins
Victoria Tomkins is co-owner and a Board Member of AMI Expeditionary Healthcare (“AMI”), a multinational company specializing in the provision of complex medical services in remote and challenging environments. AMI provides life sustaining medical services and humanitarian assistance in war zones such as Libya, Yemen, Iraq and Afghanistan and is also a large-scale primary contractor to the US Government for emergency medical services (see www.ami.health). With offices around the world, AMI has been on the leading edge of global responses to major public health crises such as Ebola and COVID. Victoria Tomkins is a graduate of the College of Charleston in Charleston, SC with a B.A. in Communication who also studied at the Journalism School at the University of North Carolina. For many years, she worked in public television (PBS) and radio as the host of various programs includingWelcome Aboard,All About ChildrenandHealthy Alternatives.
Karen Wagner
Karen E. Wagner practised law for almost forty years at Davis Polk & Wardwell, in New York City. She litigated cases involving international finance, securities fraud, nuclear power and baseball, as well as cutting edge issues presented by the restructuring of major American and foreign companies and sovereign entities. After she retired, she and a friend co-founded Lustre, a website advocating for retired career women. Karen graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and New York University School of Law. She lives in New York with her husband and has two delightful children.
At the same meeting, the following trustees were reelected to two-year terms: Angel Blue-Mielke, Suzanne Farrell, Mary Harmon, Elbrun Kimmelman, Fred Larsen, Michelle Larsen, and Gracey Stoddard.
Seven trustees whose terms expired in 2022—Jane Barnes, Elizabeth Corman, Joseph Flanagan, Susan Gitelson, Michele Jeffery, Adam Mielke, and Nina Rumbough—did not seek reelection to the Board.
We welcome our new and returning Trustees and thank all current and former Trustees for their service and support!
Fred Larsen
President