NEW YORK.- Smithsonian Institution’s board of regents voted yesterday to appoint Elizabeth Ainslie, Kurt Andersen, Michael Francis and John Maeda to the board of trustees of Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum. Led by Chairman Dinny Morse and President Paul Herzan, Cooper-Hewitt’s board of trustees is composed of a diverse group of civic and business leaders, each committed to the world of design and the continued growth of the museum.

"I'm delighted to have such distinguished individuals join the board," said director Paul Warwick Thompson. "With such remarkable design talent and experience in the not-for-profit sectors we are well positioned to fulfill the museum's national mission and mandate."

Elizabeth M. Ainslie is owner of Elizabeth Ainslie Interiors. She presently serves on the Memorial Sloan Kettering Special Research Committee and has served on the executive committee of the board of the Boys Clubs of Dallas and was an associate of the Dallas Museum of Art. She is a graduate of Colby College and studied design at El Centro College in Dallas. Ainslie is married with two sons and lives in New York.

Kurt Andersen is the host of “Studio 360,” produced by Public Radio International, the author of the novel “Turn of the Century” (Random House, 1999; Delta, 2000), and a prominent journalist. Andersen began his journalism career at Time, served as a cultural columnist for The New Yorker, was co-founder of Inside.com and editor-in-chief of both New York and Spy magazines, the latter of which he co-founded. Andersen graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College. He is a trustee of the Pratt Institute and is a member of Cooper-Hewitt’s exhibitions committee. He lives with his wife and daughters in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Michael Francis, executive vice president of marketing for Target, manages all marketing operations for the company. Francis began his merchandising and marketing career at Marshall Field’s in Chicago in 1985. He joined Target Corporation in 1990, when the company acquired the department store group. Francis has been in his current position since 2003. He is a director of Department 56 Company and Piper Jaffray Companies, a trustee of Target Foundation and is also on the board of the Walker Art Center. Francis is married with four children and lives in Minneapolis.

John Maeda is a world-renowned graphic designer, artist and computer scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Laboratory. He holds the E. Rudge and Nancy Allen professorship of media arts and sciences at MIT and is director of the laboratory’s design-oriented physical language workshop. He also co-directs the new program “Simplicity,” aimed at redefining users’ relationships with technology in their daily lives. Maeda is a winner of the National Design Award and the Mainichi Design Prize. He received both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from MIT and earned his doctorate in design from Tsukuba University Institute of Art and Design in Japan. In May 2003, he received an honorary doctorate of fine arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art.