Renée Drake has been committed to education from the beginning of her career. A native of South Africa, she taught elementary school in Cape Town for several years before moving to the Netherlands where she was instrumental in developing a curriculum for English as a second language in Dutch elementary schools.
Mrs. Drake is passionate about contemporary art, a passion that has grown over the years. Her background in education plays a significant role in her and her husband’s approach to showcasing and supporting artists from around the world. Mrs. Drake has been driven to seek creative minds and support their journeys toward achieving artistic and scientific excellence. An active curator of the Drake family collection of contemporary art, she established a unique residency program near her home in the Netherlands that provides selected artists with the living space and studio facilities they need to fully devote themselves to their work. She regularly loans works displayed in the Drake collection to top museums and institutions across the globe, currently focusing on traveling exhibitions to university galleries in the US.
As a former teacher and an ardent advocate of the integration of the arts into education, Mrs. Drake is also passionate about science, particularly the Weizmann Institute of Science. She was introduced to Weizmann through her husband Bob Drake, a third-generation Institute supporter who is currently the Chair of the International Board, chairs the European Committee (ECWIS), and was himself awarded a PhD honoris causa by the Institute in 2008.
Mrs. Drake’s strong connection with the Weizmann Institute has been punctuated by a series of deep and lasting friendships with the scientists she has come to know. In 1997, the family established the Henry H. Drake Professorial Chair of Immunology in memory of Bob’s late father. Now held by Prof. Steffen Jung, the first incumbent was Prof. Yair Reisner, a world authority on bone marrow transplantation immunology who, as a young Weizmann-trained scientist, had been part of the team assisting in Henry’s care at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan during his terminal illness. Later, the couple endowed the Drake Family Professorial Chair in Nanotechnology, whose first incumbent was Prof. Reshef Tenne, and which is now held by Prof. Ernesto Joselevich. Both Prof. Reisner and Prof. Tenne have become close personal friends of the Drake family.
The Drakes have also generously gifted the Weizmann Institute with the resources to establish the EKARD Research School of Biological Science at the Feinberg Graduate School and the EKARD Institute for Cancer Diagnosis Research at the Moross Integrated Cancer Center, the name recognition of both being a reversal of the name Drake. The auditorium that the couple built at the Davidson Institute of Science Education is called “Habarvaz” (“The Duck”)–a reference to the name Drake, which also means a male duck–raising a smile among all who know them, as well as admiration for the Drakes’ ability to have a major philanthropic impact, without taking themselves too seriously.
Today, Mrs. Drake continues to contribute to the Weizmann Institute through “friend-raising”–employing her charm and creative spirit to attract additional supporters into the Weizmann global family and, just as she does in her art, make the world a more beautiful and fascinating place.