Brest named new trustee

Paul Brest, president of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation in Menlo Park, California, has been appointed a member of Caltech’s Board of Trustees.

Since last year, Brest has headed the foundation, established by the late William Hewlett; his wife, Flora Lamson Hewlett; and their son, Walter. The organization’s mission is to promote human well-being by supporting work in areas such as conflict resolution, education, the environment, the performing arts, and global affairs.

For more than 30 years, Brest was a faculty member at Stanford Law School, where he was the Montgomery Professor of Public Interest Law. Serving as dean from 1987 to 1999, he spearheaded the expansion of the school’s curriculum in business, environmental law, high technology, and negotiation, and led a $115 million capital campaign. Brest’s research and teaching focused on constitutional law and decision making, and his writings include articles on constitutional interpretation, race discrimination, and affirmative action. He also coauthored a book, Processes of Constitutional Decision Making.

Early in his career, Brest served as a clerk to Supreme Court Justice John M. Harlan and practiced civil rights litigation with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, in Jackson, Mississippi. He received an AB from Swarthmore College in 1962 and an LLB from Harvard Law School in 1965.

The holder of honorary degrees from Swarthmore and from Northeastern Law School, Brest has been a visiting professor at Yale Law School and a fellow at Stanford’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
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