Duke University Names Five New Trustees

Abernethy M.D.’94, HS’94-’01 is co-founder of Highlander Health, an organization focused on advancing evidence generation for the new era of medical innovation. An internationally known oncologist, health data expert, and digital health leader, Abernethy is a champion for accelerating the pace at which safe and effective treatments reach patients.

She is the former principal deputy commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, where she led initiatives in advancing clinical evidence generation and personalized health care and served as the agency's acting chief information officer. More recently, Abernethy served as chief medical officer and president of product development at Verily, Alphabet’s precision health business.

Earlier she was Flatiron Health’s first chief medical officer and chief scientific officer. She was also previously professor of medicine at the Duke University School of Medicine and director of the Center for Learning Health Care in the Duke Clinical Research Institute and the Duke Cancer Care Research Program in the Duke Cancer Institute. A hematologist/oncologist, palliative medicine physician, and recipient of the 2021 Distinguished Alumna Award from Duke University School of Medicine, Abernethy has authored more than 500 publications.

Bernstein ’87 is the co-founder of the successful toy company, Melissa & Doug, which she launched with her husband Doug in 1988 from their Connecticut garage. Known for its innovative toys that inspire creativity, the company grew to become the leading U.S. preschool brand of toys with more than 30 consecutive years of growth. Bernstein and her husband recently completed the sale of the business to a publicly traded children’s entertainment company and launched a new venture, Lifelines, LLC, which designs well-being tools for adults.

Bernstein served on the Board of Visitors for Trinity College of Arts & Sciences for four years and has chaired Duke’s Innovation & Entrepreneurship (I&E) Board of Advisors for the past six years. Bernstein and her husband created the accelerator program Melissa & Doug Entrepreneurs and have personally mentored more than 80 aspiring student entrepreneurs at Duke.

Stone ’84 is a firm partner of TPG. He has served as the chief investment officer of The Rise Funds, the Rise Climate Funds, and as co-managing partner of TPG Growth. He is also the founder and managing member of FS Investors, a San Diego-based family office. Stone is a retired senior partner and past president of J.H. Whitney & Co. He serves on the Board of Advisors of the Scripps Institution for Oceanography and of Scripps Research, the Madison Council for the Library of Congress, the Board of Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego, and the Board of Overseers for the Hoover Institution. He is also chairman of Wilderness Holdings, a safari camp owner/operator, and sits on several private corporate boards. 

At Duke, Stone previously served on the Boards of Visitors of the Nicholas School of the Environment and the Fuqua School of Business, as well as the Library Advisory Board. He also served as his Annual Fund Reunion Class Chair in 2019. He earned an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1988.

Nominated by the Undergraduate Young Trustee Nominating Committee, Greene ’24 was a Reginaldo Howard Memorial Scholar. He graduated in May with a major in public policy studies and minors in both education and inequality studies. His previous roles at Duke included positions in The Graduate School, the Sanford School of Public Policy, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences, and the Durham University-Assisted Community Schools Research Collective. Greene also served on committees related to university operations, development, and inclusion.

For the past two years, Greene co-chaired Duke’s International Student Orientation program. He worked as a research intern at AccessLex Institute, a Pennsylvania-based legal education nonprofit, and as a data evaluation specialist at the Center for Supportive Schools, a New Jersey-based nonprofit in partnership with the New York City Department of Education. Greene additionally spent a summer with the Mississippi Teacher Corps, where he worked as an administrative aide and middle school math teacher in Holly Springs, Miss.

Beginning in the fall, Greene will pursue a master’s in education and learning at the University of Turku in Turku, Finland as a Fulbright Scholar.

Greene will be an observer during his first year on the board and will have voting privileges in his second year.

Stureborg was nominated by the Graduate and Professional Young Trustee Nominating Committee. He is a Ph.D. candidate in computer science, where his research focuses on addressing subjectivity in data pipelines for natural language processing. He works as an artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning researcher at Grammarly, where his research investigates how to best integrate AI into people’s writing workflow.

At Duke, Stureborg is president of the Duke Advanced-Degree Consulting Club, a pro-bono management consulting organization where he has overseen more than 50 three-month client engagements and has hired more than 200 student consultants over the past three years. As treasurer for the Graduate and Professional Student Government, he manages the annual budget, and he served on the university’s Ph.D. stipend task force. Stureborg also previously served on the Advisory Committee for Investment Responsibility (ACIR).

He holds a B.S. degree in computer engineering from Northeastern University. During his time in Boston, he was named part of the Huntington 100.

Stureborg will be an observer during his first year on the board and will have voting privileges in his second and third years.