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Diana T. Vagelos ’55 and Dr. P. Roy Vagelos met as students on Columbia’s campus in 1951. Over the past three decades, the Vageloses have supported a range of campus facilities and initiatives, including scholarships and financial aid, the Diana T. and P. Roy Vagelos Professorship of Chemistry, the Diana Center, the Milstein Center for Teaching and Learning, and the Vagelos Computational Science Center. They have made significant gifts to organizations in higher education, culture, the life sciences, and the arts, including Barnard and Columbia. Roy chairs the Columbia University Irving Medical Center’s board of advisors and co-chairs the University fundraising campaign; Diana is vice chair of the Board of Trustees for Barnard College and has expressed her belief in the importance of financial aid for students.

Diana T. Vagelos ’55 is a philanthropist and community leader who has provided service and financial support for organizations in higher education, culture, the life sciences, and the arts. She has been actively involved in organizations such as the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, where she co-founded the Women’s Association of NJPAC. In 2012, Diana received the Civic Spirit Award from the Women’s City Club of New York for her work in support of Barnard, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, and other organizations. 

Diana is a former overseer of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and a former member of the Committee on Hellenic Studies at Columbia University. 

In addition to serving as vice chair of the Board of Trustees, Diana has volunteered for Barnard in various capacities, including as her class fund chair and as a member of councils and committees, including the Arts Advisory Council, the Awards Committee, and the President’s Circle Council. She received the Award for Service to Barnard in 2005. 

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Dr. P. Roy Vagelos is the former chairman of the board of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals and retired chairman and chief executive officer of Merck & Co. Roy joined Merck in 1975, became president and CEO in 1985, and became chairman in 1986. During the peak of Roy’s leadership, the company was considered a world leader in the pharmaceutical industry. Roy retired from Merck in 1994. He served as chairman of the board for Regeneron, which had revenue of $16 billion as of 2020, from 1995 to 2023. Roy co-founded the pharmaceutical company Theravance in 1996 and served as its chairman until 2010. 

He is the author of more than 100 scientific papers and an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania (where he is trustee emeritus) in 1950 and earned an M.D. at Columbia University in 1954.  

After starting his career as a doctor for the U.S. Army, Roy joined the National Institutes of Health, where he served as senior surgeon and section head of comparative biochemistry from 1956 until 1966. After the NIH, he assumed the chairmanship of the department of biological chemistry at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, where he also founded and became director of the division of biology and biomedical sciences before leaving to join Merck.

The Vageloses have made substantial gifts to institutions such as Columbia University Irving Medical Center and the University of Pennsylvania (Roy’s alma mater). They are both the children of Greek immigrants and have four adult children: Randall, Cynthia, Andrew, and Ellen.