Board Member

Betty Castor is the former President of the University of South Florida (USF) in Tampa, Florida, where she served as President for six years from 1994 until 1999.

Prior to her tenure as President, she was the Florida Commissioner of Education for seven years and the first woman ever elected to the Florida Cabinet. Castor has held other leadership positions in education, serving as President and CEO of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, and most recently at the Executive Director of the Patel Center for Global Solutions at USF.

She is a former state legislator having served three terms in the Florida Senate. Castor is a member of the Tampa Bay Committee on Foreign Relations, the Society of International Business Fellow and the Collins Center for Public Policy. In 2010 she received the Distinguished Woman in International Commerce Award from the World Trade Center of Tampa Bay.

She began her educational career as a secondary school teacher in Uganda, East Africa and continues her support of the Teachers for East Africa Alumni Foundation. She received her Bachelor’s degree from Rowan University, Glassboro, New Jersey, and her Master’s degree from the University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida.

Castor was appointed to the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board in 2011 by President Barack Obama.