Board Member Biographies
Sidney Harman is Chairman of Harman International Industries, a leading manufacturer of high-quality audio products for the automotive, consumer, and professional markets. A pioneer in the high-fidelity industry, his innovative “quality of working life” programs have become the standard for such programs in the American workplace. A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Dr. Harman is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Aspen Institute and the Shakespeare Theatre, and trustee Emeritus of the Carter Center. A graduate of Baruch College of the City University of New York, he holds the first Judge Robert Widney Professorship in Business at the University of Southern California (named for USC’s founder and first Board president). Dr. Harman is the co-author, with Daniel Yankelovich, of Starting With the People (Houghton Mifflin) and the author of Mind Your Own Business (Currency/Doubleday). Washington DC’s new Sidney Harman Hall is named in Dr. Harman’s honor.
Jane Harman was elected to the US Congress in 1992 representing California’s 36th Congressional district. Prior to her election, Harman worked as an attorney, served as deputy secretary to the Cabinet in the Carter White House, and was special counsel to the Department of Defense. She began her career on Capitol Hill as chief counsel and staff director for the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights. Currently a senior member of the Homeland Security Committee, Harman has been a frequent critic of the administration’s post-war Iraq policy and has advocated for a post 9/11 legal framework that would inform policy on detentions, interrogations, and the surveillance of American citizens. A graduate of Los Angeles public schools, Harman received her BA from Smith College and JD from Harvard Law School.
Barbara Harman is Executive Director of the Harman Family Foundation, and President and Editor of the Catalogue for Philanthropy: Greater Washington. The Catalogue, which has won eight Wilmer Shields Rich Awards from the Council on Foundations for Excellence in Communications, annually features some of the best nonprofit organizations in DC-metro. Ms. Harman is also a member of the Board of the National Council for the Shakespeare Theatre and is active in the arts community both in Washington, DC and in Boston. She is Professor Emerita at Wellesley College, where she taught English, and wrote numerous essays and books on Renaissance and Victorian subjects, for twenty-five years. She received her BA from Tufts University and her MA and PhD degrees from Brandeis University.
