UPDATED: January 26, 2015, at 12:07 a.m.

With five out of 30 members of Harvard’s Board of Overseers about to complete their six-year terms, the University has named nominees for the next batch of alumni to serve on its second-highest governing body.

The Board of Overseers works in conjunction with the 13-member Harvard Corporation, Harvard’s highest governing board. The Corporation must obtain the Overseers’ approval for many major decisions affecting institutional policy and leadership, such the appointment of a new University president.

Overseers typically hail from many different professional fields, including law, finance, medicine, academia, and journalism. The eight current Overseer nominees are: R. Martin Chavez ’85, chief information officer and partner at Goldman Sachs; Fernande R. V. Duffly, associate justice on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court; Sandra Edgerley ’84, a board member of charitable organization the Boston Foundation and a Harvard donor; Brian Greene ’84, a physics and mathematics professor at Columbia; Beth Y. Karlan ’78, the director of the women's cancer program at the Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute; Carl F. Muller ’73, a past president of the Harvard Alumni Association; David B. Weinberg ’74, chairman and chief executive officer of the investment company Judd Enterprises; and John Silvanus Wilson, president of Morehouse College.

The University also named nine candidates for the HAA director election.

Overseer candidates may be added to the ballot via petition if they obtain enough signatures from eligible alumni by Feb. 2. Election ballots will be mailed out in April. All alumni, excluding members of the Corporation and “officers of instruction and government,” may vote in the Overseer election, according to the University’s website, while all Harvard degree holders are eligible to vote in the HAA directors election. At HAA's annual meeting in late May, the election results will be announced.

Overseers President and intellectual property lawyer Morgan Chu, Overseers Vice President and cardiologist Walter K. Clair ’77, former New York Times reporter Linda J. Greenhouse ’68, former New York City Public Schools Chief Operating Officer Photeine M. Anagnostopoulos ’81, and wildlife conservationist Cristián Samper will complete their terms in 2015. Greenhouse is a member of The Crimson's graduate board executive committee.

—Staff writer Theodore R. Delwiche can be reached at theodore.delwiche@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @trdelwic.