Past Presidents
Past Presidents of KGI
Sheldon M. Schuster
“Our institution is designed to inspire, cultivate, and encourage students to become leaders in the bioscience and healthcare industries.”
Sheldon “Shelly” M. Schuster became the second president of Keck Graduate Institute (KGI) on July 15, 2003, succeeding founding president Henry E. “Hank” Riggs. At the time, the Institute had just one academic program and 45 students.
During Schuster’s tenure, KGI achieved several “firsts” and surpassed a number of critical milestones, including completion of KGI’s first comprehensive fundraising campaign of $30 million, which included a $20 million matching grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation, and the creation of the Biocon Academy in collaboration with Biocon Ltd., India’s leading biotechnology company.
Schuster earned his bachelor's in biochemistry from the University of California, Davis, and a PhD in biochemistry from the University of Arizona.
Prior to KGI, Schuster served in senior academic positions at the University of Nebraska—Lincoln and the University of Florida.
Henry "Hank" E. Riggs
“We get to start with a clean sheet of paper. We are free to innovate. We have ultimate flexibility to experiment and to invent ourselves.”
Henry E. “Hank” Riggs was the founder and first president of Keck Graduate Institute, serving as president until 2003. An entrepreneur, professor, writer, and higher education leader, Riggs founded KGI as the seventh Claremont College based on his vision that life sciences would dominate the 21st century and that new institutions were needed to educate future leaders in this field. Before founding KGI in 1997, Riggs served as president of Harvey Mudd College for nine years.
Riggs worked in Silicon Valley in the 1960s, serving as president of Icore Industries and chief financial officer of Measurex Corporation. He then moved into teaching, returning to Stanford University as a full-time faculty member in 1974. In 1980, he received Stanford's highest award for excellence in teaching (the Walter J. Gores Award).
Riggs graduated from Stanford University in 1957 and from Harvard Business School in 1960.