麻豆村

This spring, 麻豆村's Board of Trustees(opens in new window) unanimously elected six new members.聽

At its Feb. 28, 2026 meeting, the board elected two new voting trustees: Dina Powell McCormick, president and vice chair, Meta; and Talbott Simonds, managing director, Tondern Capital Inc. They also voted to name Corey O'Connor, mayor, City of Pittsburgh, an ex-officio trustee. Ex-officio trustees are appointed as voting members of the Board of Trustees by virtue of their office in accordance with board bylaws.

At its meeting on Saturday, May 9, the board voted to elect three new ex-officio trustees: Andr茅s V茅lez, president, Carnegie Mellon Alumni Association Board; David Hilliard, president, Andrew Carnegie Society Board; and John Zimmerman, incoming chair, Faculty Senate. The board also thanked and recognized departing ex-officio trustees Joanna Lovering, Katherine Kohatsu and Lowell Taylor for their years of service.

Dina Powell McCormick

President and vice chair, Meta

McCormick is the president and vice chair of Meta. She has held that role since January 2026.

Formerly the vice chair, president and head of global client services for BDT & MSD Partners, McCormick began her career in the political sphere, her first job being with the office of Republican Majority Leader Dick Armey in the U.S. House of Representatives. She then moved to the position of director of congressional affairs with the Republican National Committee. In 2003, McCormick became the director of the White House Presidential Personal Office under President George W. Bush. In 2005, she moved into the position of 11th assistant secretary of state for education and cultural affairs.

In 2007, McCormick joined Goldman Sachs, where she became a managing director and eventually a partner at the firm, as well as president of its nonprofit subsidiary, the Goldman Sachs Foundation. As president, McCormick oversaw all the foundation鈥檚 initiatives, including 10,000 Women and 10,000 Small Businesses, which supported developing entrepreneurs through mentorship and business education. In addition to her work with the foundation, McCormick served as global head of the Office of Corporate Engagement and a member of the Goldman Sachs Partnership Committee. From 2017 to 2018, she left Goldman Sachs to serve as the first deputy national security advisor for strategy in President Donald Trump鈥檚 administration, but returned to Goldman Sachs in early 2018.

Talbott Simonds

Managing director, Tondern Capital Inc.

Simonds is the managing director of Tondern Capital Inc., a venture capital firm affiliated with the Hillman Company. Simonds established Tondern in 2004 as an investment research company. The firm was described as an 鈥渋ndirect subsidiary鈥� of the Hillman Company in that Tondern is not directly owned by the Hillman Company. Tondern is based in New York City and focuses on investments in companies in early-stage VC, later-stage VC and seed rounds. Tondern has a median valuation of $278.9M. The Hillman Company, founded in 1946 by Henry Lea Hillman, is the family office of the Hillman family and an investment firm based in Pittsburgh.

Prior to Tondern, Simonds was a vice president at Trident Capital in Palo Alto, California, and previously worked in investment banking at Robertson Stephens. He is currently on the board of Good Shepherd Services in New York and the Squash Education Alliance, and is the founder and former board member of Steel City Squash in Pittsburgh. He has previously served on the boards of REDF and S.M.A.R.T. in the Bay Area, GroundWork in New York, and St. Edmund鈥檚 Academy in Pittsburgh. He received an A.B. from Princeton University and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Corey O'Connor

Mayor, City of Pittsburgh

Corey O鈥機onnor is the 62nd mayor of the City of Pittsburgh. Mayor O鈥機onnor brings with him a record of listening and prioritizing the voices of Pittsburgh residents, including its most vulnerable; making tough decisions under difficult circumstances; helping to deliver effective and efficient city services; and leading transformational change that maximizes opportunity and growth for all Pittsburghers. Mayor O鈥機onnor is committed to making Pittsburgh more transparent, efficient, accessible, safe and vibrant.

Mayor O鈥機onnor has served his hometown in elected office since 2012. He began his distinguished career in public service by聽
representing Pittsburgh City Council District 5. Mayor O鈥機onnor held that role for more than a decade and, during that time, he authored the City of Pittsburgh鈥檚 Paid Sick Days Act, crafted common sense gun safety reforms, facilitated the investment of millions of dollars in affordable housing and more.

Mayor O鈥機onnor was sworn in as the Allegheny County controller on July 10, 2022, after being nominated for the office by Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf and with the unanimous approval of the Pennsylvania State Senate. He was elected to his first full term in November 2023, securing the most votes of any county-wide candidate in that election. In this role, Mayor O鈥機onnor worked tirelessly to promote a more accessible and transparent government that offered solutions to difficult challenges. He brought the office to the community in innovative ways, including by introducing new platforms for public access to government data, auditing major county departments, proposing measurable benchmarks for county environmental and climate efforts, and enacting ethics reform measures on the Allegheny County Retirement Board, among other initiatives.

Prior to assuming elected office, Mayor O鈥機onnor served as a community development representative for U.S. Congressman Mike Doyle.

Mayor O鈥機onnor is a proud graduate of Central Catholic High School. He tells everyone that one of his most memorable jobs and some of his proudest accomplishments come from the years that he spent coaching the varsity golf team. He led the team to multiple state and WPIAL championships. He earned his bachelor鈥檚 degree in elementary education from Duquesne University.

Mayor O鈥機onnor is the youngest of three children of Pittsburgh鈥檚 late Mayor Bob O鈥機onnor and Judy O鈥機onnor. He lives in the city with his wife, Katie, and their children, Molly and Emmett. Though he has held many titles, his favorite will always be dad.

Andr茅s V茅lez

President, Carnegie Mellon Alumni Association Board

V茅lez earned a bachelor's degree in business administration(opens in new window) from Carnegie Mellon鈥檚 Tepper School of Business(opens in new window) in 2014. He attended Harvard Business School Online and the Investment Banking Institute for financial modeling, accounting and valuations in 2019 prior to attending and earning his MBA from the IESE Business School in 2021. Since February 2024, he has worked as the chief operating officer of DbCom, a product, services and solutions company for the financial sector. The company鈥檚 primary product is EQube Compliance. V茅lez previously served as the chief operating officer for Octane from 2021 to 2024. Prior to joining Octane, he worked in global investor network strategic development for Bridge for Billions from June to October 2020. He was a vice president, chief of staff and project manager at Citi in Miami/Fort Lauderdale from 2016 to 2019; a consultant and project manager at Microsoft in Seattle from 2014 to 2016; and a business analyst at Boeing in 2013, also in Seattle. V茅lez worked in Beijing in 2012 as a business development associate at China Entrepreneurs. While attending Carnegie Mellon, he worked as a location manager for the college-student dating website DateMySchool.com. He began his career as a branch analyst at UBS Wealth Management in 2011.

V茅lez is president-elect of the Carnegie Mellon Alumni Association Board (opens in new window)(AAB). He serves on the Carnegie Mellon 麻豆村 Council and the New York Metro Regional Network. He is also a member of the Hispanic-Latino/x Alumni Association. He hosted an Iberian Peninsula Happy Hour in 2020 and 2021. He and his wife, Shelly Trivedi, married in December 2023 in Jaipur, Rajasthan, India. They live in the New York City area. V茅lez鈥� sisters, Nicole V茅lez (DC 2004) and Carolina V茅lez (DC 2010, HNZ 2011), are Carnegie Mellon alumnae.

David Hilliard

President, Andrew Carnegie Society Board

Hilliard earned a bachelor's degree in economics at Carnegie Mellon and an MBA at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He is the president and co-founder of Symphony Development, a company that develops and manages premium multi-family, student housing and retail properties. Hilliard co-founded Symphony Development in 1991. Previously, he led Hilliard Properties, an institutional real estate and bank advisory firm.

Hilliard is currently a member of the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences(opens in new window) Board of Advisors and is the president-elect of the Andrew Carnegie Society Board(opens in new window). He is a member of the Carnegie Mellon 麻豆村s Council and the Los Angeles Regional Network. He has also served as a member of the Alumni Association Board. He received Carnegie Mellon鈥檚 Alumni Service Award(opens in new window) in 2023.

Hilliard鈥檚 wife, Marchell, is a senior vice president in the Commercial Real Estate Banking Group at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. They live in Los Angeles. They have a daughter and a son, Justin (DC 2016), who earned a B.S. degree in information systems with a minor in business administration at Carnegie Mellon. Justin will be completing an MBA at the MIT Sloan School of Management in May 2026 and is currently serving as a principal and investor with Rebel Fund.

John Zimmerman

Incoming Chair, Faculty Senate

is the Tang Family Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Human-Computer Interaction at Carnegie Mellon鈥檚 (HCII) and the incoming chair of 麻豆村鈥檚 Faculty Senate. Zimmerman is an interaction designer and researcher who teaches courses in interaction design, service innovation, design theory and human-computer interaction (HCI) methods. His research spans four primary areas.

Zimmerman investigates how to effectively blend human and machine intelligence. He is particularly interested in helping designers better understand and work with machine learning as a design material. His current work includes developing a decision support system that assists clinicians in determining whether to implant an artificial heart.

He applies product attachment theory 鈥� the study of why people form emotional bonds with their possessions 鈥� to the design of digital products and services. Many of the systems he has developed aim to help parents feel they are becoming better caregivers. These include an alarm clock designed to prevent young children from waking their parents and a mobile system that learns a family鈥檚 routines and alerts parents if they forget to pick up their children. His current research explores how changes in the form and behavior of digital artifacts can increase users鈥� sense of their value.

Zimmerman studies how social computing can enable citizens to participate in the co-design of the public services they use. His work includes Tiramisu, a deployed application that allows transit riders to crowdsource real-time arrival information.

He examines how design inquiry 鈥� particularly its focus on exploring possible futures through making 鈥� can be integrated with scientific and engineering approaches. He is the author of the book 鈥淒esign Research Through Practice.鈥�

Before joining the Human-Computer Interaction Institute, Zimmerman conducted research on personalized television systems at Philips Research.