UC San Francisco Chancellor Named to Facebook Board

By Paul Thomson :: 6:33 PM

Facebook today announced that they have appointed Susan Desmond-Hellman, Chancellor of the University of California at San Francisco to their board of directors.

“I’ve always been drawn to organizations that do ground-breaking work,” she said in a statement released by Facebook earlier today.

Desmond-Hellman is a former doctor and biotech expert who spent the early portion of her career as scientist and executive at Genentech before she was tapped to run UCSF in 2009.

Her appointment makes her the second woman on Facebook’s board. The company has received criticism in the past for its low number of women board members. The addition of Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg to the board last year marked the first female seat. Desmond-Hellman’s appointment brings the total board membership at Facebook to nine.

In addition to the Facebook board, Desmond-Hellmann also serves on the board of Procter and Gamble, and in 2009, she joined the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco’s Economic Advisory Council for a three-year term. In 2008, she was appointed to the California Academy of Sciences board of trustees and the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation’s board of directors.