Dr. Maria Pellegrini is the Executive Director for Programs at the W.M. Keck Foundation in Los Angeles. She is the former Vice President for Research at Brandeis University and before that was the Program Director for Science and Engineering and the Liberal Arts at the Keck Foundation. Before joining the Keck Foundation Dr. Pellegrini spent 20 years on the faculty of the University of Southern California as Professor of Biology. During that time, she served as department chair for five years, and as Dean of Research in the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. She was a fellow of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the recipient of the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation Teacher Scholar Award. She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Dr. Pellegrini received her A.B. in Chemistry from Connecticut College, and her Ph.D. in Chemistry from Columbia University. She was a postdoctoral fellow at Caltech and UC Irvine. Dr. Pellegrini currently serves on the Advisory Council of the BIO Directorate of the National Science Foundation, the Board of the Santa Catalina Island Conservancy, the Wrigley Institute Board of Advisors at USC and is an emeritus trustee of Connecticut College.