Amber Case ’08 has been added to the Lewis & Clark Board of Trustees, the youngest trustee in the college’s history. Case will play an influential role in decision-making as a full trustee—she is not filling a young alumni seat.
At just 26, Case is part of an elite 1% of private college trustees under the age of 30 (see summary here). Yet this is a growing trend for colleges and other businesses looking to recent graduates for fresh ideas and constructive criticism—Princeton, Pomona, Skidmore, Duke, and Cornell are all excellent examples. The Charity Commission has an excellent report on the under-representation of young people as trustees and the importance of engaging this next generation.
Case is the Director of Esri R&D Center, Portland, where she works on location-based technology with a focus on mobile software, non-visual augmented reality, the future of location, and reducing the amount of time and space it takes for people to connect. She has been featured in Forbes and WIRED, and in 2012 was named one of National Geographic’s Emerging Explorers and one of Inc Magazine’s 30 under 30. Case has spoken at TED on technology and humans and was featured in Fast Company 2010 as one of the Most Influential Women in Technology.
