Jump to main content

This is historical material “frozen in time”. The website is no longer updated and links to external websites and some internal pages may not work.

Search form

Briefing Room

The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
January 06, 2017

President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, President Barack Obama announced his intent to appoint the following individuals to key Administration posts:

  • Daniel Willingham – Member, Board of Directors of the National Board for Education Sciences
  • John W. Keker – Member, Board of Directors of the Presidio Trust  
  • Mark Pincus – Member, Board of Directors of the Presidio Trust  
  • Waded Cruzado – Member, Board for International Food and Agricultural Development
  • Louis Susman – Member, Board of Trustees of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
  • Joan Ellyn Silber – Member, Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad
  • Matthew L. Wiener – Member and Vice Chairman, Council of the Administrative Conference of the United States
  • Rosemary Joyce – Member, Cultural Property Advisory Committee
  • James Wright Willis – Member, Cultural Property Advisory Committee
  • Michael McFaul – Member, National Security Education Board  
  • Tissa Illangasekare – Member, Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board  

President Obama said, “I am pleased to announce that these experienced and committed individuals have decided to serve our country. I know they will serve the American people well.”

President Obama announced his intent to appoint the following individuals to key Administration posts:

Daniel Willingham, Appointee for Member, Board of Directors of the National Board for Education Sciences
Daniel Willingham is a Professor at the University of Virginia, where he has taught since 1992.  Mr. Willingham is the author of Raising Kids Who Read: What Parents and Teachers Can Do, Why Don't Students Like School? and When Can You Trust the Experts?  He is a contributor to American Educator magazine.  Mr. Willingham is a member of the Advisory Committee for Learning and the Brain.  Mr. Willingham received a B.A. from Duke University and a Ph.D. from Harvard University.

John W. Keker, Appointee for Member, Board of Directors of the Presidio Trust  
John W. Keker is Co-Founder and Partner at Keker, Van Nest, & Peters LLP, positions he has held since 1978.  Mr. Keker was an Assistant Federal Public Defender in San Francisco from 1971 to 1973.  He served as a Law Clerk to Chief Justice Earl Warren at the U.S. Supreme Court from 1970 to 1971.  Mr. Keker was President of the San Francisco Police Commission from 1996 to 1997 and again from 1991 to 1992, and was Chairman of the San Francisco Bay Water Quality Control Board from 1981 to 1983.  He served as an infantry platoon leader in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1965 to 1967.  Mr. Keker was first appointed to the Board of Directors of the Presidio Trust in 2015 and serves as its Vice Chair.  Mr. Keker received a B.A. from Princeton University and a J.D. from Yale Law School.

Mark Pincus, Appointee for Member, Board of Directors of the Presidio Trust  
Mark Pincus is the Founder and Executive Chairman of Zynga.  Mr. Pincus has held various other executive positions at Zynga including Chief Executive Officer and Chief Product Officer.  He previously founded other technology startups including Tribe.net in 2003, Support.com in 1997, and FreeLoader in 1995.  Mr. Pincus received a B.S. from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.B.A from Harvard Business School.

Dr. Waded Cruzado, Appointee for Member, Board for International Food and Agricultural Development   
Dr. Waded Cruzado is President of Montana State University, a position she has held since 2010.  Dr. Cruzado has also served as a member of the Board for International Food and Agricultural Development since 2013.  From 2007 to 2010, she was Executive Vice President and Provost of New Mexico State University, including a one-year appointment as Interim President.  Dr. Cruzado joined New Mexico State University in 2003 and served as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences until 2007.  From 1990 to 2002, she held a series of faculty and administrative positions at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez, including Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences in 1998.  Dr. Cruzado received a B.A. from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Texas, Arlington.

Louis Susman, Appointee for Member, Board of Trustees of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
Louis Susman is a Member of the Advisory Board at Atlas Mara Capital LLC.  Mr. Susman is the former United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom, a position he held from 2009 to 2013.  He was Vice Chairman and Managing Director of Citigroup Corporate and Investment Banking from 1989 to 2009.  Mr. Susman was previously a Senior Partner at Thompson & Mitchell.  He previously served as a Director of the Center for National Policy and was appointed to the United States Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy in 1988.  Mr. Susman is Chairman of CBI Holdings, a wholly-owned subsidiary of BDT Capital Partners, and Special Advisor to Henry Crown & Co.  He is a member of the board of J Street, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Art Institute of Chicago, and Vice Chairman of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.  He was previously a member of the Board of Directors and Management Committee of the St. Louis Cardinals and the Citigroup International Advisory Board.  Mr. Susman received an A.B. from the University of Michigan and an LL.B. from Washington University in St. Louis.

Dr. Joan Ellyn Silber, Appointee for Member, Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad
Dr. Joan Ellyn Silber serves as Board President of AJC, the American Jewish Committee, St. Louis Region, and as Board President of Care and Counseling.  Dr. Silber is a board member of the Webster University College of Arts and Science Advisory Board, the St. Louis Jewish Light Scholarship Foundation, Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater St. Louis, the Newmark Institute for Human Relations, and Friends of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.   She was previously President of Aish HaTorah St. Louis.  Dr. Silber is a recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.  She was first appointed to the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad in 2015.  Dr. Silber received a B.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.

Matthew L. Wiener, Appointee for Member and Vice Chairman, Council of the Administrative Conference of the United States
Matthew L. Wiener is Executive Director of the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS), a position he has held since 2012.  Prior to that, he was Special Counsel with Cuneo Gilbert & LaDuca LLP from 2011 to 2012 and served as a Member at the law firm from 2011 to 2012.  He was previously General Counsel to U.S. Senator Arlen Specter from 2009 to 2011 and Counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee from 2008 to 2009.  Mr. Wiener previously worked at Dechert LLP from 1995 to 2006, first as an Associate Attorney from 1995 to 2004 and then as a Partner from 2004 to 2006.  He is an elected member of the American Law Institute and a fellow of the American Bar Foundation, positions he has held since 2013 and 2014 respectively.  Mr. Wiener has co-chaired the Adjudication Committee of the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice since 2014 and previously served as the legislative branch liaison to the Section’s Council in 2009.  In 2015, Mr. Wiener began serving as an elected member of the Steering Committee of the D.C. Bar’s Administrative Law and Agency Practice Section and the chair of the Section’s Standing Committee on Legislative Practice.  Mr. Wiener received an A.B. from the College of William and Mary and a J.D. from Stanford Law School.

Dr. Rosemary Joyce, Appointee for Member, Cultural Property Advisory Committee
Dr. Rosemary Joyce is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB), a position she has held since 1994.  Dr. Joyce was Assistant Director of the Peabody Museum at Harvard University from 1986 to 1989 and Director of the Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology at UCB from 1994 to 1999.  She served as Associate Dean and Interim Dean of the Graduate Division at UCB from 2011 to 2015, President-Elect and President of the Archaeology Division of the American Anthropological Association from 2009 to 2013.  Dr. Joyce was first appointed to the Cultural Property Advisory Committee in 2011.  Dr. Joyce received an A.B. from Cornell University and a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois-Urbana.

James Wright Willis, Appointee for Member, Cultural Property Advisory Committee
James Wright Willis is Founder and Owner of James Willis Tribal Art, positions he has held since 1972.  Mr. Willis has been an appraiser since 1972 for multiple collections including the Maxwell Stanley Collection, Jerry Joss Collection, and San Francisco Fine Arts Museum.  He is a founding member of Friends of Ethnic Art and the San Francisco Art Dealers Association and a member of the M. H. De Young Museum Ancient and Tribal Arts Study Committee and the Center for African Art.  Mr. Willis was first appointed to the Cultural Property Advisory Committee in 2003.  Mr. Willis received a B.A. from Pomona College.

Dr. Michael McFaul, Appointee for Member, National Security Education Board  
Dr. Michael McFaul is Director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, positions he has held since 2015.  Dr. McFaul served as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation from 2012 to 2014 and as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs on the National Security Council staff from 2009 to 2012.  Prior to that, he was Deputy Director of the Freeman Spogli Institute from 2006 to 2009, a Senior Associate and Director of the Russian Domestic Politics Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace from 1994 to 2009, and a Professor of Political Science at Stanford University from 1995 to 2009.  Dr. McFaul received a B.A. and M.A. from Stanford University and a D.Phil. from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.

Dr. Tissa Illangasekare, Appointee for Member, Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board  
Dr. Tissa Illangasekare is a Distinguished Endowed Chair of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Director of the Center for the Experimental Study of Subsurface Environmental Processes at the Colorado School of Mines, positions he has held since 1998.  Previously, Dr. Illangasekare was a Professor of Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering at the University of Colorado, Boulder from 1986 to 1998.  From 1983 to 1986, he was an Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering at Louisiana State University, and from 1978 to 1983, he was a Research Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering at Colorado State University.  Dr. Illangasekare received a B.S. from the University of Ceylon in Sri Lanka, an M.Eng. from the Asian Institute of Technology in Thailand, and a Ph.D. from Colorado State University.