Who is Julie Platt? Penn’s interim board of trustees chair has ties to Jewish community and the university.

With Scott L. Bok’s resignation from the University of Pennsylvania’s board of trustees Saturday, the school has announced that Julie Platt will step in as interim chair.

“Julie was the clear choice, and we are grateful to her for agreeing to serve in this capacity during this time of transition,” Penn’s executive committee said.

Platt, who had served as the board’s vice chair, will lead the group until a permanent successor for Bok is appointed.

Bok’s resignation came following an informal gathering of trustees Saturday. Sources said that Platt took over the meeting after Bok announced he was resigning and signed off the call.

Platt’s appointment comes amid the ongoing fallout after a congressional hearing on antisemitism last week. Former university president Liz Magill, who also resigned Saturday, faced intense criticism over her responses to questioning regarding whether calling for genocide of Jewish people violates Penn’s rules or code of conduct.

A successor to Magill has not been announced.

» READ MORE: Live updates on the resignation of Penn president Liz Magill

Here is what you need to know:

A native of Wichita, Kan., Platt is the daughter of noted Jewish philanthropist Joan Schiff Beren. In 2015, she told the Jewish Journal that she was the only Jewish person in her graduating high school class.

“I felt from the beginning that if we Jews didn’t look out for the Jewish community, there wasn’t anybody else to step up,” she said. “It wasn’t out of a sense of peril; it was a feeling of ‘l’dor v’dor,’ that I was a link in the chain.”

Platt, a full-time volunteer fundraiser in Los Angeles, chairs the Jewish Federations of North America, and serves on the board of the Foundation for Jewish Camp. She previously chaired the Los Angeles Jewish Federation’s Women’s Campaign, according to a biography on Penn’s website. She also serves on the board of Penn Hillel and the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies.

Platt graduated from Penn in 1979 alongside her husband, Hollywood producer Marc Platt.

In a 2006 interview with the Pennsylvania Gazette, Penn’s alumni magazine, Platt said the couple met during her first week as a Penn student in 1975. They began dating freshman year, got engaged at Penn Hillel during spring of their senior year, and married a month after graduating.

“I think that every woman has some kind of checklist in her head, hopefully one with shared interests and shared passions,” Platt said. “And it became evident to me very quickly that with Marc, I could check off every item on the list.”

The couple has five children. Four of them are Penn graduates — Samantha (2005), Jonah (2008), Hannah (2012), and Henry (2021), according to the school’s website. They are also the parents of Dear Evan Hansen star Ben Platt, who attended Columbia University.

Since graduating from Penn, Julie Platt has supported a number of initiatives at the school.

According to her bio on the school’s website, she and her husband made a “substantial leadership gift” that created the Platt Student Performing Arts House. The couple also established the Julie Beren Platt and Marc Platt Rehearsal Room at the school’s Houston Hall.

Platt’s name is also attached to funds and scholarships, including the Marc E. and Julie B. Platt Endowed Fund supporting the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies and Julie Beren Platt and Marc E. Platt Scholarship for the School of Arts and Sciences. Additionally, the couple also funded a summer school in Judaic studies headed by the Katz Center and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

She began serving as a member of the school’s board of trustees in 2006, and served as Penn Alumni president from 2013 to 2018.