E. Robert Fernholz and John S. Hendricks Appointed to Board of Institute for Advanced Study

The Institute for Advanced Study has appointed two new members to its Board of Trustees. E. Robert Fernholz, Founder and Chief Investment Officer of INTECH, and John S. Hendricks, Founder and Chairman of Discovery Communications, join the Board effective May 8, 2010.

E. Robert Fernholz photo courtesy of Robert Fernholz

Fernholz received an A.B. in Mathematics from Princeton University in 1962 and a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Columbia University in 1967. He began his career as an academic mathematician at the University of Washington, and later held various professorships at City University of New York, Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires, and Princeton University. Fernholz left Princeton University in 1980 to become Research Director at Arbitrage Management Company, and then in 1987 he founded INTECH, an institutional equity management firm. The INTECH portfolio process is based on mathematical methods introduced by Fernholz in the 1980s and later elaborated in his monograph Stochastic Portfolio Theory (Springer 2002). Fernholz and his wife Luisa founded the Minerva Research Foundation in 1993 to promote research in mathematical and statistical sciences and to encourage the participation of women in these disciplines. Luisa Fernholz directs the Foundation, which has given support to the Institute’s School of Mathematics since 2007.

John S. Hendricks photo by Robert Severi

Hendricks received a B.A. in History from the University of Alabama in 1974 and then served in administration at the University of Alabama and at the University of Maryland. In 1982 he established the Cable Education Network, Inc., the predecessor of Discovery Communications, Inc., and launched the Discovery Channel in 1985. Under Hendricks’ leadership, the company expanded and grew to current global operations in more than 180 countries and territories with more than 1.5 billion cumulative subscribers. The company’s 28 network entertainment brands include TLC, Animal Planet and Science Channel, and Hendricks was recognized by the National Education Association for “greatly expanding educational opportunity for America’s schoolchildren.” Hendricks and his wife, Maureen, provide grant support for science research and higher education through the John and Maureen Hendricks Charitable Foundation. Hendricks recently established the Experius Academy to support adult lifelong learning through online courses and retreats.

Three members of the Board have been named Trustee Emeritus: Richard B. Black, President and Chief Executive Officer of ECRM Incorporated, the outgoing Vice Chairman of the Institute Board, who served as a Trustee since 1990; Martin A. Chooljian, President of CH Capital Investments, who served as a Trustee since 1997; and James D. Wolfensohn, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Wolfensohn & Company, who served as a Trustee since 1979 and was Chairman of the Board from 1986 to 2007.

About the Institute for Advanced Study

The Institute for Advanced Study is one of the world’s leading centers for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. The Institute exists to encourage and support curiosity-driven research in the sciences and humanities—the original, often speculative thinking that produces advances in knowledge that change the way we understand the world. Work at the Institute takes place in four Schools: Historical Studies, Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Social Science. It provides for the mentoring of scholars by a permanent Faculty of approximately 30, and it ensures the freedom to undertake research that will make significant contributions in any of the broad range of fields in the sciences and humanities studied at the Institute.

The Institute, founded in 1930, is a private, independent academic institution located in Princeton, New Jersey. Its more than 6,000 former Members hold positions of intellectual and scientific leadership throughout the academic world. Thirty-three Nobel Laureates and 40 out of 56 Fields Medalists, as well as many winners of the Wolf and MacArthur prizes, have been affiliated with the Institute.