Brenda D. Lee is a pioneer in understanding the impact of racial inequities and developing solutions to combat them, especially for people who have been historically excluded from educational opportunities such as medical school. Lee served the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry (SMD) for nearly 30 years, retiring in 2016 from the position of assistant dean for medical education and student affairs.

Long before universities and other organizations were embarking upon ambitious initiatives to address systemic racism, Lee applied her lived experience and insight to conquer some of the uncharted barriers that contributed to a dearth of diversity in health care professions. She became a national advocate for inclusion and diversity, working to replicate New York’s successful initiatives in other states. In 1990, she convened with deans from other medical schools in New York to write a federal grant that launched the first-of-its-kind postbaccalaureate program to help prepare promising, historically excluded students for success in medical school. SMD has since become one of nine medical schools in the state to participate by recommending qualifying students for the free, 12-month enrichment program that, upon completion, leads to acceptance into that medical school. Since 1991, 94 percent of those who have completed the program have gone on to medical school, creating some 600 practicing physicians. It is one stellar example of how her ideas, energy and insight have brought institutions and individuals together to devise practical, real-world strategies for increasing diversity in medicine.

She also was a leader in the Science and Technology Entry Program (STEP), a University program that supports historically underrepresented and economically disadvantaged students in preparing to enter college, launching them toward careers in health-related and other STEM fields.

Lee’s determination and foresight opened the doors of medical and health professions to hundreds who would have never imagined such a career could be within their reach. She earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Wisconsin and a master’s degree in education from Antioch University.

Kenneth R. French ’78S (MBA), ’81S (MS), ’83S (PhD) is one of the Simon Business School’s most distinguished graduates. French is the Roth Family Distinguished Professor of Finance at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, an expert on the behavior of security prices and investment strategies, and a prolific researcher whose work has transformed the field of finance. His academic accomplishments are equally matched by his philanthropic service and leadership in his local community, for students at Rochester and Lehigh University, and at global organizations focused on health and humanitarian aid.

Throughout his career, French has produced a long series of cutting-edge research. In the early nineties, he and his coauthor, Nobel laureate Eugene Fama, published seminal papers in finance. One showed that value stocks with high book-to-market, earnings-price, and dividend-to-price ratios tended to experience higher returns than growth stocks, which had low ratios of fundamentals to price. Another, which developed a model to capture the size, value, and market risk of an asset for the purpose of pricing it, became known as the Fama-French Three-Factor Model. The groundbreaking work became the industry standard. French’s most recent research focuses on tests of asset pricing and the tradeoff between factor exposures and expected returns in US and international financial markets.

French has provided notable service to his community. At the Children’s Hospital at Dartmouth-Hitchcock, he and his wife, Vickie, support the hospital’s Child Advocacy and Protection Program, which provides treatment to hundreds of children each year who may be victims of abuse or neglect. They also established and continue to support the Professor G. William Schwert Scholarship at Simon, and in 2018, they endowed the KRFrench Family Scholars Program with a $5 million gift to support low-income, first-generation undergraduate students. In 2001, French established the JAM Account at the University of Rochester to support student emergency needs, which he continues to fund.

He received his PhD in finance from Simon, where he also earned an MS and an MBA. He received his BS from Lehigh University in 1975.

Deborah C. German ’79M (RES) is a nationally recognized physician, educator, and administrator. She serves as the vice president for health affairs for the University of Central Florida (UCF) and is the founding dean of the UCF College of Medicine, positions she has held since 2010 and 2006, respectively. In those roles, she leads both a research-based medical school and a patient-centered clinical enterprise that anchors the UCF Academic Health Sciences Center.

Under her leadership, the UCF College of Medicine achieved full accreditation from the Liaison Committee on Medical Education and raised $6.4 million to provide full four-year scholarships, for the entire 40-member charter class. German also led efforts to build a team of more than 500 faculty and staff, appoint more than 2,000 volunteer and affiliated faculty, and complete construction of a 375,000-square-foot medical campus in Orlando.

She earned her undergraduate degree in chemistry at Boston University and her MD degree from Harvard Medical School. After her completing her residency training in internal medicine at Rochester, she completed a fellowship in Rheumatic and Genetic Diseases at Duke University. She was appointed to the faculty at Duke University Medical School and worked in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, studying adenosine metabolism. During her time at Duke, she also served as director of the Duke Gout Clinics and associate dean of medical education while maintaining her own private practice of Internal Medicine and Rheumatology.

In 1988, German joined Vanderbilt University as associate dean for students and later senior associate dean of medical education. After 13 years at Vanderbilt, German was appointed president and CEO at Saint Thomas Hospital in Nashville, where she led a successful hospital turnaround that garnered her national recognition.

She has generously given her time and support to the University of Rochester Medical Center, most specifically the William L. Morgan Chair in Medicine Fund and F.F. Thompson Hospital’s Pulmonary Division. She has returned to campus as a guest lecturer, most recently in 2020 when she gave the Tana Grady-Weliky MD lecture.