Dr. Lawrence-Lightfoot, a MacArthur winning sociologist, is the Emily Hargroves Fisher Research Professor of Education at Harvard University and has been on the faculty since 1972. She retired from teaching in 2019. She is the first African American woman in Harvard’s history to have an endowed chair named in her honor. Dr. Lawrence-Lightfoot served as a director of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation from 1991 to 2007 and as chair from 2001 to 2007. She was deputy chair of the board of directors of Atlantic Philanthropies, where she served from 2007 to 2021, and previously served as chair of the Academic Affairs Committee of the board of trustees of Berklee College of Music from September 2007 until March 2012. She was re-elected to the Berklee board of trustees in March 2014 and served until 2022. She served as trustee of the WGBH Educational Foundation from 2001 through 2019. Dr. Lawrence-Lightfoot is an elected Fellow of the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, and the National Academy of Education.