Daniela Bonafede-Chabra
Why PCH? Why were you interested in joining the PCH Board and working for affordable housing in Princeton? And how long have you been on the Board?
A few years after we moved to Princeton, my husband was offered and accepted the opportunity to be the Institute for Advanced Study's (IAS) first Chief Investment Officer.
IAS is a founding member of PCH and has a representative on the board. At the time my friend Maria Maddalena was the IAS trustee. When her family situation, with three young children, made it impossible for her to continue, she told me about PCH, and then Director Peter Goddard appointed me as the next IAS rep. I joined the board in September 2008.
I was always surprised by how public schools in this country are financed by local property taxes. It seems like a system perfectly designed to ensure better schools for the children of high-income families, and worse schools for others, thus increasing the achievement gap every generation.
I thought that I should work to change that - not easy! I saw PCH as an opportunity to help families with lower household incomes live in a more affluent town.
In a short time, I learned everything I could about affordable housing, joined committees including the national advocacy organization (National Low Income Housing Coalition), went to conferences, and read books.
What is your professional background?
My background is in Neuroscience. I grew up in Italy, came to the US for college (Caltech), stayed for grad school (Yale), and then for life.
What other volunteer activities do you participate in?
My volunteerism started when my son went to kindergarten: PTA committee, PTA president, PTA council.
In Princeton, I served on the IACUC (Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee) at Princeton University as an unaffiliated member for six years.
I am in my sixth year serving on the board of the McCarter Theater Center, currently one of the Vice Presidents, as well as chair of the Board Development and Nominating committee.
I also serve on the Executive Committee of the Friends of IAS, where I chair the Programming committee.
How long have you been in the Princeton area and why did you come to this community?
We moved to Princeton on Labor Day weekend 2003, from Connecticut.
My husband Ashvin, a physicist turned finance executive, had joined Merrill Lynch barely ten days on 9/11. That morning, his train from Old Greenwich was late, which saved him. He spent the next year and a half commuting to the ML campus at Plainboro, from Connecticut!
So, we decided to move to Princeton. As former academics, we both missed being in a university town, we missed being in a town with a good theater, and we missed diversity.