GWILL YORK NEWMAN was born in Cleveland, Ohio and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Vassar College. She has been a trustee of twenty-five nonprofit organizations in education, health, the arts, equal rights, civic affairs, social services, gardens and urban development. She co-founded the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression and became president and then chairman of the Brain Research Foundation of the University of Chicago. She now resides in New Mexico.