Even after her tenure as the first woman to hold the National Security Advisor position, Condoleezza Rice’s name still resounds in Washington DC. Forbes has consistently listed her in its roster of The 100 Most Powerful Women, with her ranking 7th for 2008.

Tracing her roots to Birmingham, Alabama where she was born on November 14, 1954, Condoleezza Rice recalls the clear disparity that segregation pronounced. However, not gender nor race could hold her back as she worked her own way to go to college at the age of 15. In 1974, she graduated cum laude with a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science, — and also as a member of the exclusive Phi Beta Kappa — from the University of Denver. Immediately after, she proceeded to take her Master’s from the University of Notre Dame, which she accomplished in a year. Condoleezza Rice finished her Ph.D. in 1981 from the University of Denver’s Graduate School of International Studies.

At 26 years of age, Condoleeza Rice became a Stanford University Fellow at the institution’s Centre for International Security and Arms Control. With her academic prowess, she has also been awarded honorary doctorates from the University of Louisville (2004), the Mississippi College School of Law (2003), the University of Notre Dame (1995), the University of Alabama (1994), and the Morehouse College (1991).

In her role as a Stanford professor of Political Science since 1981, Condoleezza Rice has been awarded two of the most esteemed teaching honors: the Walter J. Gores Award for Excellence in Teaching and the School of Humanities and Sciences Dean’s Awards for Distinguished Teaching, in 1984 and 1993 respectively. Upon her return to Stanford (after her tenure as President Bush Sr.’s National Security Council), she became the first female, first non-white, and the youngest Provost in the University’s history.

Condoleezza Rice’s philanthropic work covers a number of causes as notable as her own reputation. The Center for a New Generation located in California’s East Menlo Park and East Palo Alto, is a fund to finance education initiatives for schools in the area. She was one of the organization’s Founding Board members. Being a musical prodigy (having taken piano lessons at only three years old), Condoleezza Rice also uses this gift in her philanthropic work. In a recent exclusive benefit concert, she accompanied soprano Charity Sunshine Tillemann-Dick who is afflicted with pulmonary hypertension.