Thank You Beckie and Neil Robertson

The Meinig School is grateful to Beckie Robertson ('82 Chem E) and Dr. Neil L. Robertson ('82 Chem E) for establishing the Michael L. Shuler Director's Fund for Biomedical Engineering. This fund honors the legacy of Mike Shuler, the Samuel B. Eckert Professor Emeritus of Engineering and founding chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Cornell. Beckie’s experiences as an undergraduate researcher in Mike’s lab inspired the Robertsons to establish a fund which provides flexible support of experiential learning opportunities for BME majors, such as research, student project teams, conference travel, and group interactions with clinicians at Weill Cornell Medicine.  

Beckie Robertson has nearly 25 years of experience as a venture capitalist and is the co-founder and managing director of Versant Ventures, a health care investment firm emphasizing the development of novel therapeutics. An active volunteer for Cornell, Beckie serves on the Cornell Board of Trustees, the BME Advisory Council, the Engineering College Council, and the Board of the McGovern Center Life Sciences Incubator. She is a particularly committed supporter of the Cornell Silicon Valley (CSV) Advisors, where she works with other CSV members to heighten Cornell’s exposure in the Bay Area. 

Dr. Neil Robertson is the senior director of non-volatile memory devices at Western Digital. An expert in the design of magnetic read sensors and magnetoresistive random-access memory, Neil previously worked as a research manager for the IBM Almaden Research Center. He was a member of Cornell’s Class of ’82 20th Reunion Campaign Major Gifts Committee.  

Together the Robertsons have hosted alumni dinners and events in their home and are dedicated volunteer leaders on behalf of Cornell.