Elizabeth Wells (President) was President of Marketing Drive (Wells Marketing), an integrated promotion agency that she founded in 1984 and sold to True North Communications in 1999. Clients of her agency included Visa, Wells Fargo, Pacific Bell, Palm, PG&E, and Intuit. Before that, Ms. Wells served as Director of Marketing for Shaklee Corp. from 1981 until 1984, and Director of Sales Promotion for Avon Products from 1974 until 1981. She received her B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis and her M.B.A. from the University of Connecticut.

Jonathan Rivin (Vice President) is a commercial real estate transactions lawyer in private practice in the San Francisco firm of Dudnick Detwiler Rivin & Stikker LLP, where his clients include institutions, investors, entrepreneurs, small to medium-sized companies and non-profit organizations. He served as Chair of the Executive Committee of the California State Bar Real Property Section in 2000-01 and has held leadership positions for a number of other bar and civic organizations, including the American Bar Association, the Easter Seal Society, the Down Syndrome League and the Camphill Foundation. Mr. Rivin is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School. His daughter Sarah was a member of JMSG’s first graduating class in 2002.

John Roark (Secretary) is a gastroenterologist and partner in the East Bay Center for Digestive Health. He is on the clinical faculty of UCSF School of Medicine and an instructor in the Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical School Program. He received a B.S. from Stanford University in 1972 and his M.D. from UCLA in 1977. Dr. Roark is a board member of the San Carlos Foundation, which supports long-term North American volunteers in community development projects in Latin America. He is past president and a current board member of the California Physicians Alliance, and treasurer of Health Access California, a coalition of groups seeking universal health care in California. His daughter Mollie graduated from Julia Morgan in 2004.

Ann Clarke (ex officio board member) is the founding Director of the Julia Morgan School for Girls. She has over 30 years of experience in teaching and educational administration. Ms. Clarke has served as director of the lower school at the Hamlin School; head at Marin Horizon School in Corte Madera; assistant head at St. Paul’s Episcopal Day School in Oakland; and director of the middle school at Woodmere Academy in New York. She has served as chair of the California steering committee of the Multicultural Alliance and also as co-chair of Project Discover, an organization that provides academic and personal enrichment for children of limited means. She is a member of the National Coalition of Girls’ Schools and has been a member of the National Association of Principals of Schools for Girls.

Mike Barbee is the president of Carlson, Barbee & Gibson, a Civil Engineering, Surveying, and Planning firm that he founded in 1989. The firm specializes in land development engineering, including boundary and top surveys, planning and feasibility studies, design of grading and improvements, mapping, construction staking, and related services. Mike attended the University of Utah and U.C. Berkeley. He currently serves on the board of the California and Nevada Civil Engineers and Land Surveyors Association. In the past, he was on the board of Redwood Day School. His daughter Alison graduated from JMSG in 2007. 

Darlene Bell-Carson is a Marketing Associate for Developmental Studies Center (DSC), a nonprofit educational organization. Working in Oakland, her teaching and nonprofit experience has included that of a K-12 substitute teacher, Parent and Outreach Coordinator, Community and Outreach Health Educator, and interim board member of New Village Community Charter School. In Berkeley, she has taught preschool and served as a member of the Berkwood Hedge School board. Ms. Bell-Carson received her B.A. in Legal Studies from UC Berkeley. Her daughter Sydney graduated from JMSG in 2006 and her daughter Raven is in 8th grade at JMSG.

Murray Cohen has served as Head of School of The College Preparatory School since 1999. He joined the school in 1977 as an English teacher and became Assistant Head in 1992. He has Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Doctorate Degrees from The Johns Hopkins University and taught English as an Assistant Professor at UC Berkeley from 1968 to 1976. He has served on the board of Redwood Day School in Oakland and Ecole Bilingue in Berkeley.

Ilana DeBare is a business reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, where she writes the weekly Mind Your Business column about small business. She is author of Where Girls Come First: The Rise, Fall, and Surprising Revival of Girls’ Schools, the first comprehensive history of American girls’ schools, published by Tarcher/Penguin in 2004. Previously Ms. DeBare spent nine years at the Sacramento Bee, where she wrote a series of stories on women in the computer industry that won the 1996 Jane Cunningham Croly Award from the General Federation of Women’s Clubs for reporting on women’s issues. She received a B.A. in English from Harvard College and a Master’s Degree in Journalism from UC Berkeley. Her daughter Rebecca is in the 8th grade at JMSG.

Jody Brunk Knowlton is Principal and Co-founder of Artsource Consulting of San Francisco, a firm specializing in the development of fine art collections for private, corporate, and institutional collectors world-wide. Prior to co-founding Artsource Consulting in 1994, Ms. Knowlton worked with Roselyne C. Swig Artsource, where she managed multiple corporate and private fine art collections, and developed ArtReach, a rotating exhibition program that partnered non-profit arts institutions with businesses. Ms. Knowlton has helped found nonprofits working on domestic violence and arts in education, and has served on the parent board of Thornhill Elementary School for the past five years. Her daughter Sarah is in 8th grade at JMSG.

John Ngai is a Professor of Neurobiology in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at UC Berkeley. He is Head of the Neuroscience Graduate Program, Director of the Functional Genomics Laboratory, and a member of the Executive Committee of the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute. Dr. Ngai also serves on the National Deafness and Other Communication Disorders Advisory Council of the National Institutes of Health, and is former board president of the Berkwood Hedge School. He graduated from Pomona College and received his Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology. His older daughter Stephanie graduated from Julia Morgan in 2004, and his younger daughter Julie graduated in 2007.

Walter Patrick has worked as special assistant to the S.F. Unified School Districts’ superintendent since 1998, overseeing facilities projects for the school district. Before that, he had his own business for five years as a consultant in administration, human resources and facilities. Prior to that, Mr. Patrick worked in a series of human resources positions including a vice president of human resources at Crocker Bank, and human resource positions at Ford Aerospace and AircoTemescal Co., a metallurgy firm. He received his Master's in business administration and labor relations from California State University Hayward. Mr. Patrick has served on the boards of the I Have a Dream organization and of Oakland YouthWorks. His daughter Kayla was in JMSG’s founding class. 

Kaveh Rad runs a structural engineering practice in Oakland. Born and raised in Iran, he graduated from Cornell University in engineering. His work won an Oakland Firestorm Design Award. Mr. Rad also has an M.F.A. in creative writing from Mills College. His older daughter Naseem graduated from JMSG and his younger daughter Leila is in 7th grade at JMSG. 

Elizabeth (Betsy) Strode is an attorney with a private practice in licensing, intellectual property and high technology/business law. She currently serves on the City of Berkeley Homeless Commission, to which she was appointed to by Mayor Bates in 2006. From 2002-04, she worked as Director of Development at Jewish Family & Children’s Services of the East Bay, where she oversaw a $300,000 annual fund, initiated a major gifts program, and created the first large-scale annual donor and volunteer recognition event. Ms. Strode is a graduate of Harvard College and UCLA Law School. Her daughter Kate is in 8th grade at JMSG.

Lisa Urry is an Associate Professor of Biology at Mills College and Chair of the Biology Department, with a specialty in developmental biology. She was a contributing author on the seventh edition of the largest-selling college-level general biology textbook in the world (Biology, by Campbell and Reece), which has sold about 6 million copies in total, and will be one of the co-authors on the forthcoming eighth edition. She received her B.A. from Tufts University in Biology and French, worked as a research biologist at the New England Aquarium, and then obtained her Ph.D. at MIT from the MIT/WHOI Joint Program in Oceanography. She did post-doctoral work at Tufts University, Harvard Medical School, and UC Berkeley prior to beginning her current position at Mills in 1995. Her daughter, Lily Dobberteen, graduated from JMSG in 2005.

Mike Volk has had his own independent consulting business since 1982, specializing in technical and marketing consulting related to pumps and other industrial equipment.  He teaches short courses on pumps, and has authored a 500-page handbook on pumps, published by CRC Press. Mr. Volk  has a Bachelor's and Master's degree in mechanical engineering and a Master's in business.  His daughters Sarah and Monica are both Julia Morgan alumnae.

Myrt Whitcomb was an administrator at Mills College from 1991 until 2004, serving as dean of students and then for a year as acting dean of admissions. Prior to that, she worked in administration at several other universities including associate dean of students at Princeton and assistant dean of students at Lehigh. She received her B.A. from Stanford and her Master’s from Cornell in social psychology and student personnel administration. Ms. Whitcomb also serves as a docent at the San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers.