Pratt Institute’s Board of Trustees has elected three distinguished new members: President of Olin College Gilda A. Barabino; Chairman of Steiner Studios Doug Steiner; and artist, Pratt graduate, and co-founder of Pratt>FORWARD Mickalene Thomas. The appointments took effect on July 1, 2024.
Board of Trustees member Bruce J. Gitlin became trustee emeritus effective July 1, 2024. Gitlin, whose father graduated from the Pratt School of Engineering in 1936, joined Pratt’s Board of Trustees in 1997, leading its Buildings and Grounds Committee as it transformed the Pratt campus into a green destination and sculpture garden for the community and visitors alike. He served as Board of Trustees chair from 2012 to October 2022. Gitlin is CEO of MILGO/BUFKIN, the Brooklyn-based, internationally renowned metal fabrication company.
Learn more about the newly elected trustees below:
Gilda A. Barabino’s appointment to Pratt Institute’s Board of Trustees was effective on July 1, 2024.
Gilda A. Barabino is the second president of Olin College of Engineering. A chemical engineering pioneer in the fields of medicine and global health, she leads on a global stage, weaving in an equity ethic as she has done throughout her interdisciplinary career.
Under her leadership, Olin College has strategically focused its mission of “Engineering for Everyone,” where engineering is open to all, and engineering is done in service of everyone, toward impact-centered education. She continues Olin’s integration of the arts and humanities into STEM education as a way of examining the world through different perspectives and developing solutions to complex societal challenges. She is an internationally recognized thought leader on race/ethnicity and gender in science and engineering, with a particular focus on creating cultures and climates that support a sense of belonging.
Prior to becoming president of Olin College, Dr. Barabino served as dean of the Grove School of Engineering at City College of New York (CCNY). At CCNY, she established the master’s in translational medicine program, which addresses unmet clinical needs through the integration of engineering, medical innovation, and entrepreneurship. She also doubled the retention rate for engineering students. Prior to CCNY, she held academic and administrative appointments at Georgia Institute of Technology, Emory University, and Northeastern University.
A tireless advocate for equity and justice in higher education and beyond, Dr. Barabino was the inaugural vice provost for academic diversity at Georgia Tech and vice provost for undergraduate education at Northeastern. She leads initiatives to foster cultures of belonging in STEM education, including as the founder and executive director of the National Institute for Faculty Equity. She co-chaired the National Academies study and report titled Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations.
Dr. Barabino is the board chair and a past president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest interdisciplinary scientific society. In advancing science, engineering, and innovation, she and AAAS are committed to science for and by all and engineering for everyone. In addition to AAAS, she serves on the Defense Innovation Board, the NIH National Advisory Council for Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, the Committee on Equal Opportunities in Science and Engineering, and the National Academies of Sciences Engineering and Medicine Committee on Women in Science Engineering and Medicine, which she chairs. She also serves on the boards for VentureWell, the New York Hall of Science, New York City First, and Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital – Needham.
Dr. Barabino is an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, as well as a past president and fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and the Biomedical Engineering Society. She is a recipient of the Dickson Prize in Science, the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring Award, the Pierre Galletti Award from the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, Rice University’s Distinguished Alumni Award, and two honorary degrees from Xavier University of Louisiana and from Dartmouth College.
Growing up in a military family, Dr. Barabino moved schools frequently. She was accustomed to being the first or only Black woman in academic spaces during her childhood and beyond; she was the first African American in the graduate chemical engineering program at Rice University and the fifth Black woman to receive a PhD in chemical engineering in the country. Her desire to give back to her community led her to sickle cell anemia, which disproportionately affects Black people. Her groundbreaking research informed current technologies and formed the basis for novel therapies. Through her work in global health and interdisciplinary research and education, Dr. Barabino is preparing the next generation of leaders and innovators for sustainable global health.
Dr. Barabino received a BS from Xavier University of Louisiana and a PhD from Rice University.
Doug Steiner’s appointment to Pratt Institute’s Board of Trustees was effective on July 1, 2024.
Doug Steiner is chairman of Steiner Studios, New York’s only Hollywood-style film and television production facility, which transformed the historic but formerly derelict Brooklyn Navy Yard. The Studios currently offer 780,000 square feet of sound stages and support space; at full buildout, Steiner Studios will total 1.6 million square feet on 50 acres and employ over 5,000 people.
Mr. Steiner led the fight to re-establish New York City’s position as a world-class entertainment production center; he spearheaded the creation of the New York State Film Production Tax Credit and each of its renewals and expansions.
Selected through a competitive RFP process by NYCEDC, Mr. Steiner is currently developing “Steiner Sequel,” a $550 million, 660,000-square-foot film and television production facility in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, with construction slated to commence Q4 2024. He is also constructing a historic renovation of a 120,000-square-foot building at the Brooklyn Navy Yard to be added to the original Steiner Studios lot.
Mr. Steiner has spent his entire career in industrial, office, retail, residential, and special-purpose real estate development. He recently completed: Hub, a best-in-class 55-story, 750-rental unit building in Brooklyn, including 150 units dedicated to low- and middle-income tenants; Steiner East Village, an 82-unit luxury condominium project; and Admirals Row, a 686,000-square-foot mixed-use complex at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, featuring the first Wegmans supermarket in New York City.
Mr. Steiner graduated with a BA in English from Stanford University, where he was editor in chief of the Stanford Chaparral. He was awarded an honorary PhD from Brooklyn College. Mr. Steiner serves on the boards of the New York City Regional Economic Development Council, BAM, St. Ann’s Warehouse, BRIC, the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, and the North Brooklyn Parks Alliance. He also owns Gladstone Tavern Restaurant in Gladstone, New Jersey. Mr. Steiner has three children and lives in Brooklyn.
Mickalene Thomas’s appointment to Pratt Institute’s Board of Trustees was effective on July 1, 2024.
Mickalene Thomas is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist whose work has yielded instantly recognizable and widely celebrated aesthetic languages within contemporary visual culture. She is known for her elaborate portraits of Black women composed of rhinestones, acrylic, and enamel. Not only do her masterful mixed-media paintings, photographs, films, and installations command space, they occupy it eloquently while dissecting the intersecting complexities of Black and female identity within the Western canon.
Outside of her core practice, Thomas is a Tony Award-nominated co-producer, curator, educator, and mentor to many emerging artists. Apart from her own monumental solo shows, she simultaneously curates exhibitions at galleries and museums and collaborates with corporations and luxury brands. In 2023, she became the first Black femme artist to have a scholarship in her name at the Yale School of Art. She has also been the recipient of numerous prizes, grants, and honors, including the Gordon Parks Foundation Award (2024); the LA LGBT’s 2024 Vanguard Award; the Creative Capital Wild Futures: Art, Culture, Impact Award (2024); a Hirshhorn Artist x Artist New York Gala honoree (2023); the Pratt Institute Legends Award (2022); a Rema Hort Mann Foundation 25th Anniversary honoree (2022), the Artistic Impact Award, Newark Museum (2022); a Glass House 15th Anniversary Artist of the Year (2022); a Yale School of Art Presidential Visiting Fellow in Fine Arts (2020); the Legend in Residence Award, Bronx Museum (2020); a Pauli Murray College Associate Fellow at Yale University (2020); the Appraisers Association of America, Award for Excellence in the Arts (2019); and the Meyerhoff-Becker Biennial Commission at Baltimore Museum of Art (2019). In 2018, she received an honorary doctorate in fine arts from the New York Academy of Art, and in 2015, she was a United States Artists Francie Bishop Good & David Horvitz Fellow. Thomas is also a co-founder of SOULAS House, a cultural hub and retreat for Black women, co-founder of Sock Factory Arts, co-founder of Pratt>FORWARD, and founder of Art>FORWARD Artist in the Market incubator for post-graduate students.
Work by Thomas is in the collections of numerous institutions, including Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Brooklyn Museum; Studio Museum of Harlem, New York; International Center of Photography, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington D.C.; Art Institute of Chicago; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, among others. Thomas serves on the board of trustees for Brooklyn Museum, A.I.M. by Kyle Abraham, the Romare Bearden Foundation, and The Last Resort.
In May 2024, the touring exhibition Mickalene Thomas: All About Love opened at The Broad, co-organized by the Hayward Gallery, London, and The Broad and in partnership with the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia. Mickalene Thomas: All About Love is the first major international tour of Thomas’s work. The show marked its debut at The Broad with over 80 works by the artist over the last 20 years.