Renowned Economist and Humanitarian Honored by Buck Advisory Council

Nobel Prize winning economist Myron Scholes received the Scientific Achievement Award and Cinzia Akbaralay, the Founder and President of Madagascar’s Akbaralay Foundation, received the Humanitarian Award at the May 20 kick-off event of the second meeting of the Buck Advisory Council. The BAC is a prestigious group of men and women from the United States and around the world dedicated to helping advance the ’s scientific and educational mission.

Scholes, the Frank E. Buck Professor of Finance, Emeritus, at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, delivered the keynote address at the event, "The Interplay of Population, Technology, Scarcity, and Politics on the Aging."  Professor Scholes is widely known for his seminal work in options pricing, capital market equilibrium, tax policies and the financial services industry. He was awarded the Alfred Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1997 for co-originating the Black-Scholes pricing model, which is the basis of the pricing and risk-management technology that is used to value and to manage the risk of options contained in instruments around the world.

Mrs. Akbaralay, a native of Milan, founded the Akbaralay Foundation in 2008. The foundation works in the African nation of Madagascar to improve health, education, nutrition, economic development and the lives of young people. The Foundation is the initiator of the 4AWOMAN project which is focused on preventing and treating cancer in Madagascar; the project is supported by the World Health Organization.  Mrs. Akbaralay has a degree in International Economics and Business from the Bocconi University in Italy. She started her professional career in as Deputy Director of a project at the Leningrad International Management Institute in Saint-Petersburg to teach Western economic approaches to Eastern countries. She has been the Honorable General Consul for Italy in Madagascar from 2000.

“I am honored to know both of these recipients,” said BAC Chair Harlan Kleiman. “The theme of this meeting is ‘Preparing for the Silver Tsunami’ of an aging population.  Professor Scholes helps us understand the economic repercussions; Mrs. Akbaralay gives us an example of someone who is meeting the human need.”

About the Buck Advisory Council (BAC)
The BAC comprises a diverse group of individuals from the United States and around the world. Members include leaders in government, business, finance, pharmaceuticals, law and other fields of endeavors. Many have served as advisors to governments, public commissions and nonprofit commissions. These leaders provide advice on strategic priorities, serve as ambassadors to raise the visibility of Institute achievements, and set the pace for philanthropy at the Institute. The BAC meets twice each year:  in the San Francisco Bay Area each spring and in a foreign destination each falls. At these meetings, members participate in panel discussions with faculty and other experts and develop ideas to promote the Buck Institute globally as a leader in research on aging and age-related disease.

About the Buck Institute for Research on Aging:
The Buck Institute is the first freestanding institute in the United States that is devoted solely to basic research on aging and age-associated disease. The Institute is an independent nonprofit organization dedicated to extending the healthspan, the healthy years of each individual’s life. Buck Institute scientists work in an innovative, interdisciplinary setting to understand the mechanisms of aging and to discover new ways of detecting, preventing and treating conditions such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, cancer, cardiovascular disease and stroke.  Collaborative research at the Institute is supported by new developments in genomics, proteomics and bioinformatics technology. For more information: www.thebuck.org.