Board of Directors
Peter Lawson-Johnston II
CHAIR, 1984Peter Lawson-Johnston II is Chair of the Board of Directors of The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation. He was elected to that role in 2023 and joined the Board in 1984.
A Managing Partner of Guggenheim Partners, the global investment and advisory firm, Mr. Lawson-Johnston II is a Managing Member of Cain Hoy Land & Timber in Charleston, South Carolina. He also is a Managing Member of Guggenheim Brothers, a Director and Vice President of the Elgerbar Corporation, and a former Director of the Daniel Island Development Corporation. Mr. Lawson-Johnston II has served as a Trustee of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation since 2000.
Mr. Lawson-Johnston is a graduate of Trinity College and received a master’s degree in Real Estate Development from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Planning.
William G. Bardel
2005William G. Bardel is a financial advisor to a number of educational institutions. He was Associate Headmaster and Chief Financial Officer of the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey from 1994-2006 and earlier was a Managing Director in Investment Banking and led the Government Advisory Group at Lehman Brothers.
Mr. Bardel serves on the board of the American Associates of the Royal National Theatre, the New York Society Library, and The Frederick Gunn School. He is a graduate of Yale College, Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and Harvard Law School.
Tina Bennett
2004Tina Bennett is a literary agent who specializes in narrative nonfiction, idea books, politics, history, current affairs, memoir, investigative journalism, and academic crossover titles.
A native of Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, Ms. Bennett is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities. She studied English literature at Yale University and is a graduate of Stanford University and Oxford University, where she was a Marshall Scholar.
Brogann Sanderson Bowden
2007Brogann Sanderson Bowden is a licensed clinical social worker who has served as a counselor and therapist in public and independent schools and at Princeton House, a leading behavioral health facility. She co-owned and operated True North Lacrosse, a provider of athletic camps, teams, clinics, and recruiting services for children in the U.S. and Canada.
Mrs. Bowden has served on the board of HiTOPS, a nonprofit organization promoting adolescent health and well-being. She is a graduate of the University of Virginia and the School of Social Work and Social Research at Bryn Mawr College.
Matthew Duveneck
2011Matthew Duveneck is a forest ecologist on the Liberal Arts Faculty of New England Conservatory. He is also a Research Associate at Harvard University’s Harvard Forest, where he studies the interactions between humans and natural systems.
Dr. Duveneck has taught and studied fire science and previously worked as a wildland firefighter. He is a graduate of the University of Montana, the University of Massachusetts, and Portland State University, where he received his Ph.D.
Donald C. Hood
1996Donald C. Hood is James F. Bender Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Professor Emeritus of Ophthalmic Science at Columbia University. He researches the behavior, physiology, and anatomy of the human visual system and diseases of the retina and optic nerve. From 1982 to 1987, he was Vice President for the Arts and Sciences at Columbia.
Dr. Hood has served on the boards of Brown University, Smith College, and the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology. He is a graduate of Harpur College of the State University of New York and received his Ph.D. from Brown. He has also been awarded honorary degrees from Brown, Smith, and the SUNY College of Optometry.
Carol Langstaff
1991Carol Langstaff is a choreographer, director, teacher, and photographer. She founded and led Revels North, a nonprofit arts organization in New Hampshire, and led the Flock Dance Troupe in Vermont from 1999-2018.
Ms. Langstaff, who trained with Martha Graham, connects worldwide folk traditions to contemporary social, cultural, and ecological concerns.
Ms. Langstaff was Executive Director of The Connecticut RiverFest, a nonprofit entity supporting the Connecticut River watershed. She has been honored by the Vermont Council on the Arts and The Galway Arts Council in Ireland.
Peter Lawson-Johnston
1968Peter Lawson-Johnston is Chair Emeritus of The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation. He served as Chair of the Board of Directors from 1971 to 2023 and joined the Board in 1968. He is Honorary Chairman, Trustee, and former Chairman and President of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, a Senior Partner at Guggenheim Brothers, and President and Director of the Elgerbar Corporation.
Mr. Lawson-Johnston, former President and Chairman of Zemex, the industrial mining firm, is Trustee Emeritus of the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey and author in 2005 of Growing Up Guggenheim, A Personal History of a Family Enterprise. He served in the U.S. Army Infantry from 1945-1947 and graduated from the University of Virginia.
Reeve Lindbergh
2004Reeve Lindbergh is the author of more than two dozen books for adults and children, including two memoirs, Under a Wing and Two Lives. Her work has appeared in magazines and periodicals including The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, and The Washington Post.
Ms. Lindbergh serves a number of local, state, and national organizations, including the Charles A. and Anne Morrow Lindbergh Foundation and the Vermont Arts Council. She is a graduate of Radcliffe College.
Tania McCleery
1996Tania McCleery is an advisor and consultant to family business enterprises, providing a range of financial and corporate services. She also serves as Chair of Elgerbar Corporation, a family-owned entity in South Carolina.
Ms. McCleery has served in leadership roles at several nonprofit organizations, including the Princeton Family Center for Education, Planned Parenthood of Northern, Central, and Southern New Jersey, Comer House Foundation, and the North Princeton Developmental Center. She studied at Briarcliff College and Rider College.
Tucker McNeil
2005Tucker McNeil has been a speechwriter and communications advisor for nearly 20 years. He is Senior Director for Executive Communications at Cox Automotive, a subsidiary of Cox Enterprises in Atlanta, Georgia.
Mr. McNeil was previously a communications director and spokesperson for MWV, the paper and packaging company. Earlier he was speechwriter for Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman, and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. He began his career as press secretary for Congressman Mark Sanford of South Carolina. Mr. McNeil is a graduate of the University of Virginia.
Jeremiah Milbank III
1994Jeremiah Milbank III is a Partner at Silvercrest Asset Management Group and founded Milbank Winthrop & Co., which merged with Silvercrest in 2011. Earlier, he worked in several investment businesses and served in the White House and at the State Department.
Mr. Milbank is President of Cypress Woods Corporation, the JM Foundation, and the Milbank Foundation for Rehabilitation. He is on the boards of Boys and Girls Clubs of America, The Herbert Hoover Foundation, the Coastal Conservation League, and the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Mr. Milbank graduated from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, the University of Virginia School of Law, and Trinity College.
Thomas L. Piper III
2012Thomas L. Piper III was a senior executive in the financial industry who worked with institutional asset managers and corporate leaders to develop equity financing strategies. Over five decades, Mr. Piper has served in senior roles at Dillon, Read & Co., Citibank Private Bank, W.P. Stewart & Co, and AllianceBernstein.
Mr. Piper serves on the boards of the University of Virginia Art Museum, the Boy Scouts of America Manhattan Council, the Vero Beach Museum of Art, and the Advisory Board for Our Lady Queen of Angels in New York. Mr. Piper studied at the University of Virginia and Harvard Business School.
Patricia L. Rosenfield
2005Patricia L. Rosenfield is President of the Herbert and Audrey Rosenfield Fund. She was Senior Fellow at the Rockefeller Archive Center and served at the Carnegie Corporation of New York, leading the Strengthening Human Resources in Developing Countries and Carnegie Scholars programs. Earlier, she served at the World Health Organization in Geneva.
Dr. Rosenfield writes on philanthropy, interdisciplinary science, international health, and economic development. A life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Dr. Rosenfield is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College and received her Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University.
H. Kirk Unruh, Jr.
2008H. Kirk Unruh Jr. has been Recording Secretary of Princeton University since 2003. He served in the U.S. Navy and Navy Reserve at sea, commanding Surface Warfare augmentation units, and at the Navy Command Center in the Pentagon, rising to the rank of Rear Admiral.
Adm. Unruh previously was Princeton’s Regional Director of Admissions, Associate Director of Leadership Gifts, and Director of Development Relations. A Trustee of the Jura Trust and board member of the Jura Corporation, Adm. Unruh is a graduate of Princeton, the University of Hawaii, and the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
HFG Staff
Deirdre Hamill
DIRECTOR OF FINANCE & ADMINISTRATIONDeirdre Hamill is Director of Finance and Administration of The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation. In this role, she oversees the Foundation’s fiscal activities and administrative operations.
A Certified Public Accountant, Mrs. Hamill joined the Foundation as Treasurer in 2003. She later added the responsibilities of Corporate Secretary. Mrs. Hamill continues in both of these roles.
From 1988 to 2002, Mrs. Hamill served as a consultant to the Foundation on financial matters. She also amassed extensive experience in finance-related positions in the technology and small-business sectors and at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Mrs. Hamill began her career with Coopers & Lybrand, where she worked as a Staff Accountant and later as an Audit Supervisor. During this tenure, Mrs. Hamill worked widely with nonprofit and philanthropic organizations, including extensive engagements with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation.
Mrs. Hamill is an active member of leading professional organizations, including the Foundation Financial Officers Group, the Financial Foundation Managers Group, Exponent Philanthropy, and Philanthropy New York.
Mrs. Hamill is a graduate of The State University of New York at Albany, where she majored in accounting.
Nyeleti Honwana
PROGRAM OFFICERNyeleti Honwana is Program Officer at The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation. In this role, she serves as lead organizer of the Foundation’s African Fellows Program, a two-year mentorship program targeting Ph.D.-level researchers working on issues of violence and conflict in Africa. Ms. Honwana is also part of the team that evaluates the Foundation’s Distinguished Scholars and Emerging Scholars applications.
Ms. Honwana is Co-Founder of Global Black Youth, an organization that convenes innovative, disruptive, and entrepreneurial young Black leaders to generate knowledge and solutions to global challenges. She serves on the steering committee of the Africa Grantmakers’ Affinity Group, a network of international philanthropic organizations funding projects on the African continent. She co-leads the Africa, Peace, and Security Network, a group that convenes professionals in the private, public, and third sector working at the intersections of peace and security on the continent to promote collaboration. In 2020, she was among the inaugural cohort of professionals awarded the Equity in Philanthropy Fellowship by the Rockwood Leadership Institute and recognized as one of the Top 100 Most Influential People of African Descent Under 40.
Ms. Honwana came to the Foundation from Boston University, where she completed an M.A. in international affairs with a certificate in African studies. Her graduate thesis, “Social Movements in Africa: Mozambique and Civil Disorder,” received the Hermann Eilts Thesis Award for best graduate thesis. She holds a B.A. in contemporary history from the University of Sussex.
Ellie Shackleton
Program AssistantEllie Shackleton serves as Program Assistant at The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation. In this role she supports the Foundation’s programmatic activities and administrative operations.
Miss Shackleton has previously worked at the Center for the National Interest as a program assistant and Fragomen Del Rey Bernsen & Loewy LLP as a legal assistant. She served internships at the Stimson Center, the Consulate General of Jamaica in New York, the Scottish Parliament, and the U.S. Senate. While at the Stimson Center, she participated in the writing of two reports, one on the United Nation’s 75th anniversary declaration and one on sustainable post-COVID recovery. She also completed a practicum with the International Action Network on Small Arms, for which she wrote a country profile on gender-based violence in Mali. She is particularly interested in violent conflict, post-conflict statebuilding, conflict history and environmental factors in conflict.
Miss Shackleton received her Master of Arts degree in international affairs from the New School in 2021 and her Bachelor of Arts degree in international studies from American University in 2017.
Joel Wallman
DIRECTOR OF RESEARCHJoel Wallman is Director of Research at The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation. In this role, Dr. Wallman shapes and guides the Foundation’s research agenda and programmatic activities.
Dr. Wallman joined the Foundation in 1991, serving first as Program Officer and then as Senior Program Officer.
An anthropologist by training, Dr. Wallman is a recognized expert on violent crime in the United States and Latin America, among other topics. In these areas, he has undertaken significant research and written extensively. He is currently a member of a group of criminologists working under an HFG grant to develop a crime-forecasting model for use by scholars and policymakers.
Dr. Wallman is co-author of “Did De-Policing Cause the Increase in Homicide Rates?” (Criminology and Public Policy 2019), “Understanding Mexico’s Drug Violence” (Journal of Conflict Resolution 2015), and “Illicit Markets and Violence” (Crime, Law and Social Change 2009). He co-edited The Crime Drop in America with Alfred Blumstein (Cambridge University Press 2005). He is author of “Unpacking Recidivism” (Criminology and Public Policy 2005) and Aping Language (Cambridge 1992). An associate editor of Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict, he has also published in Computer Applications in the Biosciences and Current Anthropology.
Before joining the Foundation, Dr. Wallman taught at Columbia University, Rutgers University, and Hunter College of the City University of New York. He received his B.A., Summa Cum Laude, in anthropology from the University of Kansas and his Ph.D., with Distinction, in anthropology from Columbia.
Daniel F. Wilhelm
PRESIDENTDaniel F. Wilhelm is President of The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation. Under his leadership, the Foundation has increased its focus on research to inform policy and practice while maintaining its commitment to the highest standards of scholarship.
Prior to his appointment in 2017, Mr. Wilhelm served for 14 years at the Vera Institute of Justice, a nongovernmental organization working to improve systems of justice in the United States and abroad. As Vice President and Chief Program Officer, he was responsible for developing and overseeing the institute’s efforts on immigration, racial justice, mass incarceration, crime victimization, and other key areas. He also supervised Vera’s Washington, D.C., office and its communications and development activities. Mr. Wilhelm joined the institute in 2001 to work with government leaders on sentencing and corrections reform.
Previously, Mr. Wilhelm was an attorney at Sidley & Austin and served as law clerk to U.S. District Judge Frederic Block in Brooklyn, N.Y. He has testified on crime policy before some 20 federal and state panels. Mr. Wilhelm has written for Vera, the American Journal of International Law, the American Bar Association, and the Federal Sentencing Reporter, where his work was cited by the U.S. Supreme Court, among others.
Mr. Wilhelm is a founding director of the Council on Criminal Justice and is a member of the Steering Committee of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge. Mr. Wilhelm advises a number of university research initiatives on crime and justice issues.
Mr. Wilhelm is a graduate of Northwestern University School of Law, Harvard Divinity School, and the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.