Trust Leadership
Professor David Hickton
Managing Trustee
- Professor Hickton is the founding director of the University of Pittsburgh Institute for Cyber Law, Policy, and Security and a professor of law at Pitt teaching Cyber Law, Policy, and Security, Federal Hate Crimes, and Police Misconduct.
- Professor Hickton was Staff Director, House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis from May 2020 to June 2021.
- Professor Hickton served as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania from August 2010 to November 2016. During his time as U.S. Attorney, Professor Hickton was the DOJ Leader on the Opioid Epidemic, where he co-chaired the National Heroin Task Force and formed the U.S. Attorney’s Working Group on Addiction, Intervention, Treatment, and Recovery.
- For almost 30 years, Professor Hickton had a national litigation practice focusing on transportation, commercial litigation, construction, and white collar crime. Professor Hickton is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and is admitted to the United States Supreme Court.
- He started his legal career as a law clerk to The Honorable Gustave Diamond, United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania from June 1981 to June 1983.
Judge Gerald Bruce Lee
Trustee
- Judge Lee, United States District Judge (Ret.), works as a certified Mediator with the McCammon Group, specializing in resolving complex legal disputes.
- He was a trial judge for twenty-five years, nineteen years in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, and six and one-half years in the Fairfax Circuit Court. Judge Lee has presided over complex product liability, wrongful death and personal injury, civil rights, employment law, and commercial cases. In the Eastern District of Virginia-Alexandria Division, he presided over several high-profile cases involving terrorism, espionage, federal death penalty, labor and employment, and intellectual property cases.
- Judge Lee’s board experience includes membership on the Board of Directors of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority and current service on the Board of Trustees of The American University.
- For almost 30 years Judge Lee has led a program for boys aged 10-16 to learn about law enforcement and legal careers.
Dr. Megan Ranney
Trustee
- Dr. Megan L. Ranney is an emergency physician, researcher, and national advocate for innovative approaches to public health. She joined Yale in July 2023 as the Dean of the Yale School of Public Health and C. E. A. Winslow Professor of Public Health. Prior to arriving at Yale, Dr. Ranney served as Deputy Dean at the Brown University School of Public Health; the Warren Alpert Endowed Professor of Emergency Medicine at Alpert Medical School of Brown University; and the Founding Director of the Brown-Lifespan Center for Digital Health. She remains an adjunct faculty member at Brown University.
- Dr. Ranney has held multiple national leadership roles, including Co-Founder and Senior Strategic Advisor for the American Foundation for Firearm Injury Reduction in Medicine (AFFIRM) at the Aspen Institute, a nonprofit committed to ending the gun violence epidemic through a non-partisan public health approach, and Co-Founder of GetUsPPE, a start-up nonprofit that delivered donated personal protective equipment to those who needed it most. She is a Fellow of the fifth class of the Aspen Institute’s Health Innovators Fellowship Program and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine.
- Dr. Ranney earned her bachelor's degree in history of science, graduating summa cum laude, from Harvard University; her medical doctorate, graduating Alpha Omega Alpha, from Columbia University; and her master’s degree in public health from Brown University. She completed her residency in Emergency Medicine and a fellowship in Injury Prevention Research at Brown University. She was previously a Peace Corps Volunteer in Cote d'Ivoire.