Max Stier, founding president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation, and Judy Woodruff, anchor and managing editor of the PBS NewsHour, will be honored at the 106th Gold Medal Dinner of the National Institute of Social Sciences on Wednesday, December 2, in New York.
As the founding president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, Max Stier has overseen the creation and growth of a network connecting more than 1,000 colleges and universities with 80 federal agencies; a center focusing on the presidential transition; an awards program that recognizes exceptional civil servants for their extraordinary accomplishments; and annual rankings that examine employee engagement; numerous leadership development programs.
Before coming to the Partnership, Mr. Stier worked in all three branches of federal government: on the personal staff of Congressman Jim Leach, as a clerk for Chief Judge James Oakes of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and for Justice David Souter of the U.S. Supreme Court, and as special litigation counsel to Assistant Attorney General Anne Bingaman at the Department of Justice. He practiced law at the firm of Williams & Connolly, and was the deputy general counsel for litigation at the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Darren Walker is president of the Ford Foundation, an international social justice philanthropy with a $13 billion endowment and $600 million in annual grant making. He chaired the philanthropy committee that brought a resolution to the city of Detroit’s historic bankruptcy and is co-founder and chair of the US Impact Investing Alliance.
Before joining Ford, Darren was vice president at the Rockefeller Foundation, overseeing global and domestic programs including the Rebuild New Orleans initiative after Hurricane Katrina. In the 1990s, as COO of the Abyssinian Development Corporation—Harlem’s largest community development organization—he oversaw a comprehensive revitalization strategy, including building more than 1,000 units of affordable housing and the first major commercial development in Harlem since the 1960s. Earlier, he had a decade-long career in international law and finance at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton and UBS.
Mr. Walker co-chairs New York City’s Commission on City Art, Monuments, and Markers, and serves on the Commission on the Future of Rikers Island Correctional Institution and the UN International Labor Organization Commission on the Future of Work. He serves on the boards of Carnegie Hall, and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, among many others. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is the recipient of 13 honorary degrees and university awards.
Broadcast journalist Judy Woodruff is the anchor and managing editor of the PBS NewsHour. She has covered politics and other news for more than four decades at NBC, CNN, and PBS.
She was White House correspondent from 1977 to 1982 at NBC News, followed by one year as the Today Show’s chief Washington correspondent. From 1983 to 1993, she was the chief Washington correspondent for PBS’s MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. From 1984 – 1990, she also anchored PBS' award-winning documentary series, "Frontline with Judy Woodruff." Moving to CNN in 1993, she served as anchor and senior correspondent for 12 years, co-anchoring the weekday program "Inside Politics," among other roles. She returned to the NewsHour in 2007, and in 2013, she and the late Gwen Ifill were named the first two women to co-anchor a national news broadcast. After Ifill's death, Ms. Woodruff was named sole anchor.
Ms. Woodruff is a founding co-chair of the International Women's Media Foundation, an organization dedicated to promoting and encouraging women in journalism and communications. She serves on the boards of trustee of the Freedom Forum, The Duke Endowment and the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and is a director of Public Radio International and the National Association to End Homelessness.
One of the nation’s oldest honorary societies, the National Institute of Social Sciences has presented Gold Medals each year to men and women whose lives have manifested the highest achievements and who have made significant contributions to society and to humanity. This year’s three honorees joined a distinguished, diverse pantheon of honorees that stretches back to 1913.
Recent Gold Medal Honorees include Paul Edward Farmer and Peter Gelb (2019), Daniel Kahneman, Geraldine Kunstadter, and Elizabeth Barlow Rogers (2018), Ron Chernow, Robert Shiller, and Michael Sovern (2017), Pauline Newman, Richard L. Ottinger, and Robert Putnam, (2016), John Bogle, Paul Krugman, and Michelle Kwan (2015), and Eric Foner, Philippe Petit, and Edward O. Wilson (2014).
List of Gold Medal Honorees, 1913-2019
For more information, please contact Timothy Cross at 347-261-4579 or admin@socialsciencesinstitute.org.
About the National Institute of Social Sciences
Established in 1912, the National Institute of Social Sciences is a voluntary association of public-spirited citizens who explore issues of urgent and lasting concern. One of the nation’s oldest honorary societies, the National Institute sponsors speeches, discussions, and events that encourage balanced, non-partisan debate and discussion; celebrates distinguished Americans and world leaders who have contributed at the highest level to the welfare and improvement of society; and provides financial support to emerging scholars who are conducting research in the social sciences.