$10 million gift to university from Sharon Marcil and Tom Monahan to launch the Marcil-Monahan Family Initiative on Translational Brain Science, a new effort designed to move discoveries about the brain out of the laboratory and into practical use in health care, education, and clinical treatment

Duke University received a $10 million gift from trustee Sharon Marcil and her husband, Tom Monahan, to launch the Marcil-Monahan Family Initiative on Translational Brain Science, a new effort designed to move discoveries about the brain from the laboratory into practical use in health care, education, and clinical treatment.

The gift will fund three endowed professorships—a senior faculty member who will lead the initiative, followed by two junior professors—along with a faculty-support fund covering laboratory equipment, research infrastructure, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers.

Housed within Duke’s Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, the initiative is intended to create a permanent “translational research core” that connects fundamental neuroscience findings to real-world applications in medicine, mental health treatment, and learning, according to Duke’s announcement. University officials also expect the initiative to strengthen ties between the psychology and neuroscience department and Duke’s biomedical engineering programs in the Pratt School of Engineering, as well as health-focused research at the Fuqua School of Business, while accelerating the launch of a planned Master’s program in psychology and neuroscience.

Marcil and Monahan’s philanthropy is rooted in a deep family relationship with Duke. Marcil graduated from Duke in 1988 with a degree in economics, went on to earn an M.B.A. from Harvard, and was elected to Duke’s Board of Trustees in 2023, where she serves on the Undergraduate Education Committee. Monahan, whose academic background is in English literature from Harvard, is not a Duke alumnus himself, but the couple are the parents of a Duke graduate, giving the family a multigenerational tie to the university that Duke’s announcement highlighted directly.

Professionally, Marcil has spent more than three decades at Boston Consulting Group, where she most recently served as North America Regional Chair, overseeing the firm’s operations across the United States, Canada, and Mexico from 2021 until her term concluded earlier this year, when she was succeeded by Mel Wolfgang. Over her career at BCG, which she joined in 1993 after working in mergers and acquisitions at Goldman Sachs, Marcil has held roles including the firm’s global chief marketing officer and global head of its consumer practice, and she was named one of Consulting Magazine’s “Women Leaders in Consulting.”

Monahan built his career leading corporate research and advisory firms. He joined the Corporate Executive Board (CEB) in 1996, became chief executive in 2005 and chairman in 2008, and presided over a period in which the company’s revenue grew 157 percent before Gartner acquired CEB in 2017 in a deal valued at roughly $3.3 billion.

He later served as president and chief executive of DeVry University from 2020 to 2023, where he was credited with steering the institution through digital expansion while freezing tuition and expanding financial aid, and he currently serves as vice chairman and chief executive of the executive-search firm Heidrick & Struggles, alongside board roles at TransUnion and DeVry.

In a joint statement accompanying the announcement, Marcil described the couple’s motivation in terms of speeding the path from discovery to patient impact.

“We’re pleased to partner with Trinity College of Arts & Sciences and the psychology and neuroscience department to move their exceptional scholarship into practice more quickly,” she said. “It’s our hope that our support will help create a seamless bridge between laboratory science and patient care.”

Monahan struck a similar note, emphasizing both the science and the people behind it: “We are excited to help Duke advance and unlock brain science for the public good. We believe that this investment will make an impact in the long term because, in addition to their groundbreaking research, the faculty is skilled at training and inspiring the next generation of innovators.”

Duke President Vincent E. Price called the gift transformative, saying, “I am deeply grateful to Sharon and Tom for their transformative generosity, which will accelerate breakthroughs in brain science and help translate those advances for the public good. The Marcil-Monahan Family Initiative on Translational Brain Science will help ensure that Duke remains a leader in research that delivers meaningful impact for generations to come.”

Gary Bennett, dean of Trinity College of Arts & Sciences, framed the gift as addressing an unfinished scientific challenge: “Despite considerable effort, we still have substantial work to do, both in fully understanding the brain and in translating that understanding into solutions for society’s most pressing mental health challenges. This initiative extends excellence already underway in Duke’s brain science community and situates it within a broader university ecosystem positioned to convert insight into impact.”

The Marcil-Monahan commitment is one of several eight-figure gifts Duke has announced in recent months, including a $10 million gift from Laurene and Scott Sperling earlier in August to name the university’s Center for Jewish Studies, underscoring a broader wave of major-donor investment in Duke’s faculty and research infrastructure this year.