The UVM Board of Trustees completed its membership for the upcoming year with the addition of alumna Cynthia Barnhart, chancellor and professor of civil engineering and engineering systems at MIT. 

Barnhart, who graduated from UVM in 1981 with a degree in civil engineering, was elected in August to fill a remaining vacancy following the elections of Ron Lumbra and Donald McCree in February. All three members will serve six-year terms ending in 2020. They succeed Rob Cioffi, Sam Bain and Bill Ruprecht, all of whom completed their terms in February of 2014. 

Additionally, Samantha Lucas was appointed to the board by the Associated Directors for the Appointment of Student Trustees, Inc., in February 2014 for a two-year term ending in 2016. She succeeds Dennis Mahoney, who graduated in May. 

Barnhart, the first women to hold the chancellor’s position at MIT, previously served as the associate dean of the School of Engineering and was director of Transportation@MIT, an initiative that seeks to address the world’s transportation needs. She has been a professor for more than 20 years at MIT, where she earned a master’s degree in transportation in 1985 and a doctorate in civil engineering  with a focus on transportation and operations research in 1988. 

In addition to serving as president of INFORMS Forum on Women in Operations Research and Management Sciences and of INFORMS Transportation Science and Logistics Society, Barnhart has garnered numerous awards. She won the Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation; INFORMS First Prize Award for Best Paper in Transportation Science & Logistics; and INFORMS award for the Advancement of Women in Operations Research and Management Science, among others.

At UVM, Barnhart served as a member of the advisory board for Civil and Environmental Engineering and as a member of the advisory board for the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences. She is married to Mark Baribeau, a 1981 graduate of UVM, and has two children, Olivia Anne Baribeau and Julia Sophia Baribeau.

Lumbra, a 1983 graduate of UVM, is managing director and co-leader of the Russell Reynolds Associates CEO and Board Services practice in the Americas. He previously co-led the firm's operations in the Americas and ran the New York and Houston offices. Lumbra, who holds an MBA from Harvard University, is board chairman of KaBOOM!, a national nonprofit dedicated to creating play spaces for children. He formerly served as board director for the Alumni Association of the University of Vermont, the Harvard Business School Club of Greater New York, and the Houston Youth Symphony. He is married to Mitzi Lumbra and has two children, Casi and Evan.

McCree, who graduated from UVM in 1983, spent 30 years at J.P. Morgan until his retirement in 2014. He was Global Head of J.P. Morgan’s Global Corporate Banking and CEO of J.P. Morgan’s Treasury Services business, a part of J.P. Morgan’s Corporate and Investment Bank. Previously, he served as executive vice president of finance, focusing on treasury, corporate finance, and corporate mergers and acquisitions. McCree, who has been a member of the UVM Foundation Board of Trustees since its formation, is on several charitable boards in the NY area. He is married to Gabrielle McCree and has three children, Lorayne, Christopher and Andrea. 

Lucas, who is in the UVM Honors College, is currently pursuing an accounting degree in the School of Business Administration with minors in Spanish and philosophy. She has studied abroad at the Universidad de San Francisco de Quito in Ecuador and is a member of the Alpine Ski Club, Kappa Alpha Theta Fraternity and Slade Hall, UVM’s residential environmental co-op. She is also a university tour guide and a cadet in the Army ROTC program.

PUBLISHED

08-27-2014
Jon Reidel