Terry Babcock-Lumish

In 2019, Dr. Terry Babcock-Lumish was named the first female Executive Secretary of the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation, the United States’ living memorial to the thirty-third president and the presidential monument to public service. In lieu of a traditional brick-and-mortar monument, President Truman encouraged a living memorial that would give life to the values of service that had animated his career. In that spirit, the Truman Foundation's vision is of a country that deeply values public servants, and its mission is to invest in the next generation of leaders in service to our communities, nation, and world.

Previously, Dr. Babcock-Lumish led Islay, a certified minority and women-owned small business she founded in 2005 to provide strategic guidance for philanthropic foundations and other mission-driven organizations across six continents. Recent years’ academic affiliations include the City University of New York, Oxford's Rothermere American Institute, the Oxford University Centre for the Environment, the University of Arizona, the University of Delaware's Biden School, the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School, and the United States Military Academy, where she co-founded West Point's partnership with the Culinary Institute of America. She also served as the inaugural Newman Director of Public Policy at the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute, dedicated to education, research, and civic engagement, in the historic New York City home of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and Sara Delano Roosevelt.

Dr. Babcock-Lumish has worked in local, state, and federal government for both Democratic and Republican administrations. Upon leaving the White House in 2001, she served as a researcher for two books by former Vice President Al Gore. Her research interests involve decision-making at the intersection of science, technology, and society.
She is a Fellow of the RSA and the Royal Geographical Society, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and was named one of Tucson's "40 Under 40." Media experience - ranging from domestic US politics and civilian-military relations, to international macroeconomic indicators, women's leadership, philanthropy, and global development - has included ABC News, The Hill, Forbes India, NPR, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.

Dr. Babcock-Lumish completed her Bachelor of Science at Carnegie Mellon University, and earned her Masters of Public Affairs in environmental and technology policy at Indiana University's O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs as a Lilly Community Assistance Fellow. She read her Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford as a Truman and Clarendon Scholar.

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