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UC San Diego Alumni Board of Directors Announces New Members
Malinda Danziger | August 22, 2011
The Alumni Board of Directors at the University of California, San Diego, has announced the appointment of four new members: Megan Bettilyon, ’07, M.S. ’10; Sandi Logan, ’86; Mark Suster, ’91; and Suzanne Valentine, ’89.
“Over the past 12 months, our UCSD Alumni group has gained tremendous momentum while celebrating UC San Diego’s 50th Anniversary with alumni both locally and across the globe,” says Armin Afsahi, ’90, executive director of UCSD Alumni. “Our new board members bring new energy and talent to UCSD Alumni. Our board is poised to make a powerful leap forward in engaging our alumni in all facets of the university.”
The Board of Directors oversees the strategic development of UCSD Alumni programs and initiatives that advance UC San Diego in communities around the world including 25 regional alumni clubs in locations as far afield as London and South Korea. Nine have been added in the last year including Hawaii, Latin America and Singapore.
The Board is also committed to raising scholarships for ambitious and motivated students at UC San Diego. In just under 40 years, the Board of Directors has and alumni donors have helped to raise an endowment of $6.5 million that has funded nearly 1,000 scholarships.
The new directors will join the current 32-member board to advise in the policies and outreach efforts of UCSD Alumni and to provide counsel and advice to University leadership, serving as the representative voice of over 130,000 alumni around the world.
The new Board members come from a diverse range of backgrounds including science, business and entertainment:
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Megan Bettilyon, ’07, M.S. ’10, is the administrative coordinator for the San Diego Center for Algae Biotechnology, a consortium of UC San Diego and Scripps Institution of Oceanography researchers dedicated to finding ways to use algae in products such as biofuels, nutraceuticals, packaging and medicine. Previously, Bettilyon was the laboratory and administrative manager for a kidney development and tissue engineering lab at UCSD.
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Sandi Logan, ’86, is vice president of casting for ABC Entertainment, responsible for both the ABC Network and ABC Studios. In 1996, she started her career in casting at Universal Television working on sitcoms like Coach, Brother’s Keeper, and Something So Right. Logan then joined Liberman/Patton Casting as a casting director where she cast Boomtown, Monk (for which she was nominated for an Emmy for Best Casting of a Comedy), as well as pilots for Medium and Like Cats and Dogs.
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Mark Suster, ’91, is general partner at GRP Partners, the largest venture capital firm in Southern California where his focus is early-stage technology companies. A two-time entrepreneur himself, Suster was vice president of product management at Salesforce.com following its acquisition of Koral, where he was founder and CEO. Prior to Koral, he was the founder and CEO of BuildOnline, the largest independent global content collaboration company focused on the engineering and construction sectors, which was acquired by SWORD Group.
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Suzanne Valentine, ’89, is senior vice president of science and analytics at DemandTec, a collaborative optimization network for retailers and consumer product companies headquartered in San Mateo, Calif. Valentine has pioneered scalable analytics to support retailers and manufacturers and is the co-recipient of 17 patents. She championed the inauguration of the DemandTec Foundation and the Retail Challenge, a math-based scholarship program for high school seniors. Prior to DemandTec, Valentine worked at Procter & Gamble in both trade promotion analytics, and design and analysis of clinical trials.
UCSD Alumni Board of Directors began as a group of 10 volunteers in 1974. Today, the board includes loyal alumni from a variety of industries and backgrounds and from five decades of graduates. Each member may serve two three-year terms. The board meets throughout the year to establish goals and objectives for UCSD Alumni and, through the work of its committees, guides and assists the staff in the implementation of its programs for alumni. For more information, visit UCSD Alumni Association Board of Directors.
Gifting for the Future
Record Amount of Alumni Invest in UC San Diego
For the 8,082 alumni who gave to UC San Diego this year, their reasons were many. Some gave because of professors they remembered (“I was inspired by faculty like Professors Skretny and Markowitz,” said one). Others gave in appreciation for the sacrifices that were made to attend college (“In honor of my mother, who helped me attend such a great university as UCSD!”). But what united them all was the decision to make a gift of any size to their alma mater at a time when every gift counts more than ever.
 Thanks to the support of these alumni, the 2010-2011 Alumni Participation Campaign turned out to be the most successful in UC San Diego’s history. The campaign goal of encouraging 8,000 alumni to participate in giving to the university was not only met, but exceeded, as alumni showed that despite tough economic times they were more than willing to invest in UC San Diego and higher education.
“Things are tight, but I want to give something,” said one alumnus. “This is all I can afford right now but I am so impressed and personally impacted by the work of the School of Medicine,” said another.
With the increase in alumni support and other private contributions, UC San Diego will be able to remain one of the nation’s top 10 public universities, an academic and research powerhouse with an impact that goes beyond San Diego to affect California and the world. Alumni gifts support many areas of campus including scholarships and fellowships for ambitious and motivated students, seed money for new research and innovative programs, and faculty recruitment and retention efforts. Less than 10 percent of the university’s budget currently comes from the state of California funds for education. With that percentage continuing to decrease, the funds raised by UCSD’s alumni are more critical than ever.
As one alumna who gave this year said, “Everyone should have a chance to go to a great school like UCSD.” With ongoing support from the 8,082 alumni who gave this year and the thousands more who have yet to give, UC San Diego will continue to remain a great university for generations to come.
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