Laurance Rockefeller Laurance Rockefeller Laurance Spelman Rockefeller (May 26, 1910 – July 11, 2004) was an American philanthropist, businessman, financier, and major conservationist. He was a prominent third-generation member of the Rockefeller family, being the fourth child of John Davison Rockefeller Jr. and Abigail Greene "Abby" Aldrich. His siblings were Abby, John III, Nelson, Winthrop, and David. Rockefeller was born in New York City. He graduated from Princeton University (1932) and attended Harvard Law School for two years, until he decided he did not want to be a lawyer. On August 22, 1934, in Woodstock, Vermont, Laurance married childhood friend Mary French,
Rockefeller University from 1978 to 1990. Paul Nurse, who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2001, was president from 2003 to 2010. (Before Nurse's tenure, Thomas Sakmar was acting-president from 2002.) In all, 36 Nobel Prize recipients have been associated with the University. In the mid-1970s, the University attracted a few prominent academicians in the humanities, such as Saul Kripke. Rockefeller Sr, urged by Rockefeller Jr, his only son, who was enthusiastic about the Institute, visited the University once. Rockefeller Jr's youngest son David would visit with his father. David Rockefeller joined the board of trustees in 1940, was