Cynthia Brodhead

As the spouse of the President of Duke University, Cindy Brodhead spends much of her time working to extend the outreach of the President to university and community constituencies. She is a member of the advisory boards of Duke’s Nasher Museum of Art and Sarah P. Duke Gardens. She also currently serves on the boards of directors of Carolina Ballet, Preservation North Carolina, the Durham Arts Council, the Central North Carolina Chapter of the American Red Cross, and St. Joseph’s Historic Foundation Hayti Heritage Center.

Before coming to Duke University in 2004, Brodhead worked as a lawyer in the New Haven, Connecticut, law firm of Wiggin and Dana, LLP, where she concentrated on corporate and regulatory work with a specialization in the electric power industry. Brodhead graduated from the Honors Program at Syracuse University, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and was awarded a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship for Graduate Study.  She studied as a Ph.D. student at Yale University, where she earned an M.A. in English. She earned her law degree from the University of Connecticut School of Law, where she was a member of the Law Review.

She is a passionate gardener, an enthusiastic cook, and she loves to read and to travel. Brodhead and her husband have one son, Daniel, who is grown.  He lives and works in New York City.