Board Membership

Appointed by Governor Youngkin to serve July 1, 2023 – June 30, 2027

Charles “Cully” Stimson is an accomplished businessman and attorney.  Stimson is the Deputy Director of the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, Senior Legal Fellow, Manager of the National Security Law Program, and Senior Advisor to the President at The Heritage Foundation.  Stimson is a widely recognized policy expert in crime control, national security, immigration, homeland security, and drug policy at the Washington D.C. based think tank.  He has served as the Chief of Staff at Heritage three times and ran the transition for three Heritage presidential changes of command.

Before joining the think tank in 2007, Stimson served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs. He advised then-Secretaries of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates and coordinated the Pentagon’s global detention policy and operations, including at Guantanamo Bay and in Iraq and Afghanistan.

An accomplished trial lawyer, Stimson worked as a prosecutor in San Diego, Maryland, and as an Assistant United States Attorney in the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.

A third-generation naval officer, Cully served in the Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps (JAG) for 30 years, including three tours on active duty. During his active duty and reserve career, he served as a military defense counsel, prosecutor, as Deputy Chief Judge of the Navy-Marine Corps Trial Judiciary, and the Commanding Officer of the Preliminary Hearing Unit among other assignments. He retired from the Navy JAG Corps as a Captain on February 1, 2022, after 30 years of service.

Stimson’s thousands of media interviews and appearances include Fox News Channel, MSNBC, CNN, BBC, NPR and C-SPAN. He has been quoted by most major newspapers, including The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and London Times.

A businessman and educator by training, Stimson is Chairman of the Board of his family’s commercial real estate company in Seattle. Before 9/11, he was a Vice President at a New York-based global financial services and insurance brokerage firm where he ran the private equity mergers and acquisitions D.C. operation.

Stimson holds a law degree from the George Mason University School of Law, where he later taught as an Adjunct Professor of Law. He is a graduate of Kenyon College, where he was Captain of the men’s varsity soccer team and an All-Conference player. He also studied at Harvard and Exeter universities. An avid soccer player, he served three terms as Chairman of the Board of the United States Soccer Foundation, the charitable giving arm of U.S. Soccer, and is currently the Chairman Emeritus.

Appointed by Governor Youngkin to serve July 1, 2022 – June 30, 2026

Michael J. Meese is the President of the American Armed Forces Mutual Aid Association (AAFMAA), a non-profit association supporting the military and veterans with insurance, financial planning, investments, mortgages, and other benefits.

In 2013, he retired from the US Army as a Brigadier General.  He concluded his 32-year career teaching economics and national security courses while serving as the Professor and Head of the Department of Social Sciences at the U.S. Military Academy.  In addition to teaching, he served in a variety of strategic political-military positions including deployments to Afghanistan, Iraq, and Bosnia for a total of 31 months.

He has been involved in higher education for over three decades, most recently serving as the Chair of the Board of Regents of Concordia College, New York.  He is an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University and at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences.  Previously he taught at Princeton University and was a distinguished research fellow at the National Defense University.

He has written and lectured extensively on national security and economics including the books American National Security and the Armed Forces Guide to Personal Financial Planning. He is a graduate of the National War College, U.S. Military Academy, and holds a Ph.D., MPA and M.A. from Princeton University.

He lives in Oak Hill, VA with his wife and they have three grown children.  Both of his daughters graduated from George Mason University, one as an undergraduate and the other as a graduate student.

Appointed by Governor Youngkin to serve July 1, 2023 – June 30, 2027

Mr. Alacbay is Chief of Staff & Senior Vice President of Strategy for the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA), a nonprofit organization supporting academic excellence, academic freedom, and accountability in higher education. Mr. Alacbay’s research on higher education policy issues has been featured in outlets including The Wall Street Journal, the Associated Press, Fox News, and Forbes, and he has provided guidance on institutional governance to boards of trustees across the country. Prior to joining ACTA, he worked in private practice as a trial attorney and later managed an educational services startup company. Mr. Alacbay received a B.A. in Economics and English from the University of Virginia and his J.D. from George Mason University School of Law, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the George Mason University Civil Rights Law Journal.

Appointed by Governor Youngkin to serve July 1, 2022 – June 30, 2026

Robert Frank Pence was born in 1945 in Washington, D.C.; he married his beautiful wife Suzy in 1968. Bob and Suzy are the parents of three sons: Steve, Geoff, and Brian. They also have eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

President Trump appointed Bob to serve as the United States Ambassador to Finland where he served from April, 2018 until January, 2021. In 2021 Finnish President Sauli Niinistö presented Ambassador Pence with the Commander Grand Cross of the Order of the Lion of Finland medal.

In 1976 Bob founded The Pence Group, a real estate development firm located in Reston, Virginia. He is also the founding member of the Dulles Expo Center.  He previously served on the boards of The Langley School, George Mason University, American University, the World Affairs Council/Washington, D.C., the Wolf Trap Foundation, the Gary Sinise Foundation, and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. In 2007 Bob and Suzy were awarded American University’s President’s Award and, in 2016, they received the Scopus Award from the American Friends at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.  In 2022 the Pences became Sterling Fellows at Yale University. He is a member of the District of Columbia Bar and Congressional Country Club.

Bob earned his B.A. at the University of Maryland, two M.A.s and a J.D. from American University, and a M.A. and M.Phil. from Yale University. He has taught in the Italian programs at both Yale and Georgetown. Among their many civic and philanthropic endeavors they endowed the naming gift for the American University Law Library. The Pences are proud sponsors of many USO dinners and concerts with the Beach Boys, Gary Sinise’s Lt. Dan Band, and many other recording stars. They were pleased to have aided in the construction of the American Veterans Disabled for Life Memorial in Washington, DC and to have advocated in the award of the Congressional Gold Medal to the Doolittle Raiders.

Appointed by Governor Youngkin to serve July 1, 2024 – June 30, 2028

Jon M. Peterson is the Chief Executive Officer of Peterson Companies, one of the largest, most-admired privately-held real estate companies in the Washington, DC area. Founded more than  54 years ago, the company is responsible for some of the most prominent and successful mixed-use retail, residential and office developments in Northern Virginia and Maryland including Fairfax Corner, Fair Lakes, National Harbor, Virginia Gateway, Downtown Silver Spring, RIO, Burke Centre and Tysons McLean Office Park.

Jon has been instrumental in the development of National Harbor from an underutilized waterfront property to a mixed-use waterfront destination that is home to Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, MGM National Harbor, Tanger Outlets and The Capital Wheel.

In 2016, he became Chairman of Peterson Companies’ Executive Committee, which oversees all aspects of the retail, residential, commercial and mixed-use development and management. Prior to that, Jon served as Senior Vice President of Commercial and Business Development which allowed him to develop close ties to the entire metropolitan real estate community. He has led all aspects of build-to-suit, purchase and acquisition, sale, leasing and financing of commercial properties, as well as the ground up development of approximately 3.5 million square feet of commercial office product in the Washington Metropolitan area.

Jon graduated from Middlebury College, and he and the Peterson Family believe passionately in giving back to the communities they serve. Jon was appointed to the George Mason University (GMU) Board of Visitors for the term July 1, 2020 – June 30, 2024.  He served as the Board of Visitors’ Vice Rector and GMU’s Board of Trustees from 2014-2018. He was also a board member of Washington First bank from 2014-2018. Currently, Jon serves on numerous philanthropic boards and committees including National Association of Industrial and Office Properties (NAIOP); NAIOP Northern Virginia; Youth for Tomorrow Board of Trustees; George Mason Center for Real Estate Entrepreneurship; Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance; The 2030 Group; The 123 Club; GMU Patriot Club Advisory Board; Mason Housing, Inc.; President’s Council of The Real Estate Roundtable; Virginia Association for Commercial Real Estate; and Prince George’s County Roundtable Board.

Appointed by Governor Youngkin to serve July 1, 2023 – June 30, 2027

Jeff Rosen is Of Counsel at the law firm of Cravath Swaine & Moore, based in its Washington, D.C. office, where he advises clients on regulatory enforcement, investigations, litigation, and other business-critical legal concerns.  He is also a Nonresident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and an appointed Public Member of the Administrative Conference of the United States.

In 2022, Mr. Rosen served as Chair of Virginia’s Commission to Combat Antisemitism.

From 2019 to 2021, Mr. Rosen served as Acting Attorney General of the United States and Deputy Attorney General of the United States.  His prior roles included serving as the U.S. Deputy Secretary of Transportation, as General Counsel and Senior Policy Advisor at the White House Office of Management and Budget, and as General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Transportation.   Outside of public service, Mr. Rosen had worked for nearly thirty years at the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis LLP, including service on that firm’s global management committee.  He is also a former Chair of the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law & Regulatory Practice.

Mr. Rosen has been a distinguished senior fellow at GMU’s Scalia Law School Gray Center since 2021, and in the past was an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s law school.  He is also a member of Northwestern University’s Arts & Sciences Board of Visitors.   Mr. Rosen holds a B.A. with highest distinction from Northwestern University and a J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School.

Isaiah Grays is a Michigan native and sophomore studying Government and International Politics. As a freshman, Grays was elected and sworn in as the 46th Student Body President of George Mason University. Before his arrival to Mason, President Grays served as U.S. Youth Advisor to the United Nations Ocean Decade, 4th Cohort, where he co-authored an Education Toolkit presented at the United Nations Ocean Decade Conference in Barcelona, Spain. Grays served as the Student Body President of Grand Blanc High School, representing over 2,700 students, and served on the 1st Cohort of the Young, Gifted, and Green Youth Environmental Justice Council, where he became a member of the American Public Health Association and presented his co-authored abstract on economic and environmental disparities in Genesee County, Michigan.

President Grays, as a Mason student, served as Spring 2025 Congressional Intern for Michigan Congressman John James.

President Grays ran on a commitment to bring back the You to GMU!

Nilima Hakim Mow is an international doctoral student in the Linguistics PhD program within the Department of English in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHSS). Originally from Bangladesh, she holds a master’s degree in Linguistics and Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) from Ball State University in Indiana. Her research focuses on the documentation and revitalization of endangered and Indigenous languages.

Nilima is deeply committed to linguistic justice and fostering inclusive academic practices. She has served in several leadership roles within the Mason community, including as the graduate representative for the Linguistics PhD program and as a member of the International Student Advisory Board. She is excited to serve as President of the Graduate and Professional Student Association (GAPSA) for the 2025-2026 academic year. As GAPSA President and Graduate Student Representative to the Board of Visitors, Nilima is committed to advocating for graduate and professional students across all campuses at Mason. She is focused on amplifying student voices in university decision-making, increasing awareness of GAPSA’s resources among graduate and professional students, and enhancing the overall graduate student experience. Her goal is to strengthen the connection between Mason’s graduate and professional student body and university leadership to ensure meaningful representation and engagement.

Solon Simmons is the director of The Narrative Transformation Lab (TNT Lab) at George Mason University’s Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution. A sociologist by training, he is the author of many books and articles on narrative and storytelling in peace and politics, including Conflict Resolution after the Pandemic Building Peace, Pursuing Justice (2021), Root Narrative Theory and Conflict Resolution; Power, Justice and Values (2020),  and The Eclipse of Equality: Arguing America on Meet the Press (2013). He is currently finishing a book about story grammar and basic plot types. At The Narrative Transformation Lab, Solon is leading efforts to develop cutting-edge narrative tools for use in practical applications in both adversarial struggles for justice and collaborative journeys toward peace. Solon served as interim dean for the Carter School in 2013, and Vice President for Global Strategy for George Mason from 2014-2017, and he teaches classes on the craft of peace writing, conflict theory, narrative, media, discourse and conflict, human rights, quantitative and qualitative methodology, global conflict, and critical theory.

Rachel Spence is the Academic Manager for International Enrollment Partnerships and the Chair of Staff Senate. In her current role, she is an integral part of campus internationalization efforts spearheaded by the Global Education Office. As academic manager, she builds the academic components of programs and pathways for international students to earn George Mason degrees. Her role involves collaboration across many facets of the university including academic departments, Admissions, the Registrar’s Office, INTO Mason, and University Life.

Rachel has been a George Mason employee since 2017 and has served on the Staff Senate since 2022, becoming chair in January 2025. As a formerly remote employee, she is committed to advocating for all staff, regardless of their campus or location around the world. Her priorities as Chair are supporting professional development, well-being, and work-life balance initiatives to enhance the overall staff experience at George Mason University.