Brandeis Magazine

The Brandeis Board of Trustees has elected four new members: Fran Bermanzohn ’78; Bram Shapiro; Cynthia Berenson, G’13; and Jayne Beker, P’99, P’04, P’15. Their four-year terms began on Sept. 26.

Before her retirement, Bermanzohn was deputy general counsel at Goldman Sachs, responsible for the firm’s trading, investment banking, and merchants and commercial banking businesses. She joined Goldman Sachs in 1992, and was named a managing director in 1998 and a partner in 2002. Earlier in her career, Bermanzohn was senior vice president and general counsel at the Public Securities Association. She also worked at law firms Webster & Sheffield and Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, specializing in structured credit transactions. She has served as a Brandeis trustee once before, from 2011-14.

Shapiro is a member of the corporate and securities groups at Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo. His practice focuses heavily on mergers and acquisitions, and he advises clients on strategic, legal and business issues, including matters involving the avoidance and resolution of business disputes, financings and employment issues. Prior to becoming an attorney, Shapiro worked in the aerospace industry in California. His grandfather, Abraham, was a founding Brandeis trustee in the 1940s. His father, Robert ’52, also served as a Brandeis trustee. And his mother, Valya ’61, a Wien International Scholar, is a University Fellow and a member of the national board for the women’s, gender and sexuality studies program at Brandeis.

Berenson is a philanthropist who has given decades of service to Brandeis, the international Jewish community and many nonprofits. She is a board member at the Women’s Studies Research Center; the women’s, gender and sexuality studies program; and the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism. Berenson and her husband, Theodore, are both University Fellows. The couple co-launched the Berenson-Allen Center for Noninvasive Brain Stimulation, at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Beker, a University Fellow, is director of the Beker Family Foundation, which supports a range of philanthropic interests. A clinical psychologist, she was the consulting psychologist for the Family Center at New York City’s Bank Street College of Education for 20 years. She is also a wellness coach, certified in the psychology of eating and mind/body nutrition. She and her husband, Harvey, are the parents of three Brandeis graduates, two of whomare married to Brandeis alumni.