Catalysts and innovators headline 2022 Yale Medal recipients

Since its inception, the Yale Medal, the highest honor presented by the Yale Alumni Association, has been awarded to more than 340 individuals who have shown exemplary devotion to Yale’s mission and demonstrated their support through extensive, extraordinary service to the university and its schools, institutes, and programs.

Like their predecessors, this year’s recipients have made lasting and significant contributions to Yale – as volunteers, fundraisers, and trailblazers, rallying the alumni community to support the university, guiding a new generation of alumni leaders to continue Yale’s tradition of service, and supporting students to achieve their very best.

The 2022 Yale Medalists are Gina Rosselli Boswell ’89 MBA, Alison E. Brody ’95, Rockwell “Rocky” Chin ’71 MCP, Lauren E. Graham ’13 MEM, and Donald M. Roberts ’57. They will be officially honored in a special ceremony to be held later this year.

Please read below for more on each of the recipients and their important contributions.

Gina Rosselli Boswell ’89 MBA

Dedication and excellence has defined Gina Rosselli Boswell’s service to Yale and its community. She has been a valuable presence in multiple areas, but the cornerstone of her commitment was her six years as president of the University Council. Asked by President Richard Levin to join the Council in 2013, and then serving as president from 2015 to 2021, she shepherded the group through Yale’s transition to current president, Peter Salovey, providing wise counsel and creative solutions to the constantly evolving challenges that face a thriving university. Yet her service to Yale began well before this role. Boswell was born and raised in the Elm City, within earshot of the roar of the crowds at the Yale Bowl. Her first act of service to her future alma mater came at age twelve, as an usher at Yale football games. Fast forward a decade later, she received her degree from the Yale School of Management in 1989, and proceeded to have a respected career in the consumer products industry. Boswell recently retired from Unilever, where she led multi-billion dollar beauty, personal, food, and home care businesses in North America and the UK, in addition to serving on a number of public and private corporate boards. She maintained her connection to Yale with consistent and active participation in many organizations and initiatives, including key volunteer roles at the School of Management, Yale Alumni Association, and on the Alumni Schools Committee. She was an active ex-officio member of the YAA Board of Governors during her term as University Council president, marked by meaningful work on the Alumni Fellow Nominating Committee in particular. Essential in the launch of the 1stGenYale shared interest group, Boswell provided her typical brand of tireless volunteer work and vital contributions to help ensure that promising students from all backgrounds could thrive at Yale today as she did.

Watch: Gina Rosselli Boswell's honoree video.

Alison E. Brody ’95

Alison Brody has a sincere love for Yale as a lifelong family, and she invests her considerable talents to make students and fellow alumni alike feel the same way once they join the Yale community. Her knack for bringing people together shines in the Pacific Northwest, where she revitalized the Yale Club of Oregon and has served as Alumni Schools Committee chair for over twenty years. Beyond ensuring prospective Yale students receive an alumni interview, her comprehensive approach to engagement has meant that her connection with new Yale students doesn’t end at matriculation. She maintains these relationships long after students arrive in New Haven, acting as a mentor and inspiring many of them to become active alumni volunteers themselves. Brody was a dedicated member and officer of the YAA board, where she stood out as an early advocate for and leader of student-alumni mentoring programs. She was a founding board member of STAY (Students and Alumni of Yale), an organization which nurtures relationships among current Yale students and alumni. Brody and her husband, fellow alum Don Bingham ’95, host an annual picnic for all Oregon admitted students and their families, recognizing that an essential element of successful community-building is fun. In addition, she built community among classmates during 10 years as a class officer. Brody’s connection to Yale reaches back as well as forward; her late father, J. Kenneth Brody ’44, ’49 LLB, was a 2010 recipient of the Yale Medal. In her service to Yale, she has gone far to honor the past as well as shepherd new generations of Elis.

Watch: Alison E. Brody's honoree video.

Rockwell “Rocky” Chin ’71 MCP

For five decades, Rocky Chin has been, and continues to be, an incomparable advocate for the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community, both at Yale and in his home city of New York. Now a retired government civil rights attorney, Chin is a steadfast community organizer who has consistently championed Asian-American issues throughout his lifetime and continues to ardently do so in the light of a recent rise in violence against Asian Americans. As a student at the School of Architecture, he was a co-founder of Yale’s first and oldest Asian American student organization, the Asian American Students Alliance, in partnership with Alice Young ’71 and the late Don Nakanishi ’71 (both Yale Medal recipients). Chin later brought this fierce dedication to his community to his professional life, as a founder of the Asian American Bar Association of New York, a Civil Rights Chair of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association, and now as a member of the New York City Commission on Human Rights. For Yale, Chin has also served as a member of Yale Alumni Association’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Task Force, and as a founding member of the Association of Asian American Yale Alumni (AAAYA). His infectious warmth and keen interest in others have given rise to numerous alumni events and programs, including regular Yale Day of Service projects at Chinatown's Yung Wing School (P.S. 124), named for a Yale 1854 graduate, and the annual Lunar New Year Banquet to fund Yale student summer internships, as well as career mentoring programs and direct personal counseling. Through his singular persistence and ability to build community, these programs continue to flourish.

Watch: Rocky Chin's honoree video.

Lauren E. Graham ’13 MEM

An all-around powerhouse and strategic community-builder, Lauren E. Graham is the embodiment of leadership and service to Yale. She is dedicated to creating pathways for alumni of all backgrounds, generations, and schools to work in concert to build a future that is not defined by its perils, but by its possibilities. Since assuming the role of chair, Graham has steered Yale Blue Green into a robust alumni shared interest group with a network of local chapters, an alumni board, vibrant programming and events, and an initiative focused on ensuring Yale’s global leadership in sustainability. She also served as the lead organizer for the 2019 Yale Environmental Sustainability Summit (YESS). In recognition of her work, Lauren received the 2019 YAA Leadership Award for Volunteer Innovation and Service while Yale Blue Green received the YAA Board of Governors Excellence Award in 2020. Lauren’s alumni service and involvement with YBG first began while a master’s student. It quickly blossomed into multiple leadership positions, including an at-large delegate to the YAA Assembly and committee co-chair roles as a member of the YAA Board of Governors and the YAA Alumni Task Force on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. As Secretary of the YaleWomen Governing Council, she was instrumental in crafting their five-year strategic plan. One of the youngest alums ever to be honored with the Yale Medal, her diplomacy, intellect and service-driven leadership ensure she will continue to be a driving force for building the capacity of the Yale alumni community to create a positive impact on the world.

Watch: Lauren E. Graham's honoree video.

Donald M. Roberts ’57

A son of Yale whose generosity of spirit continues to lift his alma mater, Don Roberts has provided leadership and inspiration for many in the Yale community. As founder of the Music in the Schools Initiative at the Yale School of Music, Roberts began a now-thriving program that has enhanced music education for more than one thousand New Haven Public Schools students and counting. His generous personal donation to the Class of 1957 Music Endowment led many of his fellow classmates to join him in support of music in public schools, helping young Elm City students become musicians and Yale School of Music students become teachers. His ability to rally his classmates to give back did not end there. Roberts led the giving effort for the Class of 1957 50th Reunion to an astounding $34 million. He also initiated the Nathan Hale Award at the Yale Alumni Fund, including conceiving of and funding the award’s signature “Nathans” statues, miniature versions of the campus Nathan Hale statue that are given to Yale alumni in recognition of their outstanding dedication “to God, to country, and to Yale.” Roberts, who completed the Boston Marathon 31 times, and his wife, Mary, were both keen runners and believed deeply in the broad benefits of sport to mental and physical health. To share this passion with the Yale community, Roberts funded the Frank Shorter ’69 Track, a new banked track in Coxe Cage. Demonstrating his integrity and humility, he asked that the track be named for the legendary Yale Cross Country captain and Olympic gold and silver medalist in the marathon, rather than for himself.

Watch: Donald Robert's honoree video.