Provosts

Big Ten Academic Alliance Provosts

• Chair - Lauren Robel - Indiana University

  Lauren Robel began serving as Provost and Executive Vice President of Indiana University-Bloomington in July, 2012. She is a graduate of Auburn University and Indiana University Maurer School of Law.

   Lauren Robel has been Dean of the Indiana University School of Law since 2003. Prior to her appointment as dean, she served as Acting and Associate Dean from 1991-2002. She also served as Assistant, Associate and Full Professor of Law at the Indiana University Law School from 1985-2002. Prior to those appointments, she was Law Clerk for the Honorable Jesse Eschbach and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit from 1983-85.

  Robel has also been a visiting faculty member at Université Panthéon-Assas (Paris II), where she published a book, Les États des Noirs: Fédéralisme et question raciale aux États-unis, (Presses Universitaires de France, 2000), with Professor Elisabeth Zoller.

  Lauren Robel's research focuses on the federal courts. Her articles have appeared in numerous leading law journals. She is a frequent speaker on topics ranging from procedural reform to sovereign immunity and co-author of Federal Courts: Cases and Materials on Judicial Federalism and the Lawyering Process (LEXISNEXIS 2005), a casebook on federal jurisdiction written with Arthur Hellman.

  She is currently President of the American Association of Law Schools, where she has served as a member of its Executive Committee since 2006. She is also a member of the Rules Advisory Committee for the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

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• Andreas Cangellaris - University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

  Andreas Cangellaris began serving as Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Provost of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on January 16, 2018. He earned a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 1985, having previously completed a master’s degree in electrical engineering at the Berkeley campus and an electrical engineering degree at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece.
  
  Dr. Cangellaris has served as head of the department of electrical and computer engineering since 2013. He continues to hold the position of M.E. Van Valkenburg Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He arrived at the Urbana campus in 1997 as a professor of electrical and computer engineering after serving as an assistant and then associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Arizona.
  
  Over the course of his 30-year academic career, Dr. Cangellaris’ focus has been on the fields of applied and computational electromagnetics; stochastic, multidomain physics modeling; and system-level electromagnetic compatibility. In addition to supervising 47 master’s students and 28 doctoral candidates, he has authored or co-written more than 280 referred journal and conference publications, and has led the development of several prototype tools for computer-aided analysis and design of RF, microwave and high-speed digital electronic systems.
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• Montserrat Fuentes - University of Iowa

  Montserrat (Montse) Fuentes became the University of Iowa’s Executive Vice President and Provost on June 28, 2019. She received Bachelor of Science degrees in mathematics and statistics and in music and piano from the University of Valladolid, Spain, and a PhD in statistics from the University of Chicago. She completed postdoctoral studies in environmental sciences at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
  
  Prior to joining the University of Iowa, Dr. Fuentes served Virginia Commonwealth University in the roles of dean of the College of Humanities & Sciences and professor of statistics in the college, as well as professor of biostatistics in the School of Medicine. Before her time at Virginia Commonwealth University, Dr. Fuentes was head of the Department of Statistics and James M. Goodnight Distinguished Professor of Statistics at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. She also previously served as director of the Network on Statistical Methods in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (STATMOS), a National Science Foundation-funded center to promote multi-institutional and interdisciplinary research training at the interface of statistics and atmospheric and oceanic sciences, with 200 members and 21 affiliated institutions.
  
  Dr. Fuentes’ research interests include big data; brain-imaging analysis; statistics for spatial data; uncertainty analysis; computer models; and interdisciplinary applications in neurosciences, environmental sciences, and health sciences. She says she’s motivated by a desire to address scientific and societal problems in brain imaging, weather forecasting, climate change, air pollution and human health effects from pollution, as well as studies of pregnancy and pregnancy outcomes for both mother and child. 
  
  She has authored more than 100 scientific publications and served as principal or co-principal investigator on more than 20 research grants, with total funding of more than $25 million. 
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• Mary Ann Rankin - University of Maryland

  Mary Ann Rankin was named Senior Vice President and Provost of the University of Maryland in October 2012. She received her bachelor's degree in biology and chemistry from Louisiana State University, was a National Science Foundation pre-doctoral fellow at the University of Iowa and Imperial College Field Station, Ascot, England, and earned a doctorate in physiology and behavior from the University of Iowa in 1972.

  She was a National Institutes of Health post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University until joining The University of Texas at Austin in 1975 as an assistant professor of zoology. In 1986, she was promoted to professor. Dr. Rankin was chairman of the Division of Biological Sciences from 1989 until her appointment as dean of the College of Natural Sciences in 1994 to her departure in 2011.

  Dr. Rankin's research focuses on studies of the physiologic relationships governing the evolution of insect life history strategies. She is a member of the American Entomological Society, the Royal Entomological Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

  Rankin is currently CEO of the National Math and Science Initiative in Dallas. She serves on several non-profit boards including the Austin Lyric Opera and the Southwest Institute (one of the nation's largest, non-profit R&D firms in engineering and space sciences) as well as the Advisory Committee for the Division of Education and Human Resources at the National Science Foundation.

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• Susan M. Collins - University of Michigan

  Susan M. Collins was named Acting Provost for the University of Michigan in January, 2020. She earned her bachelor’s degree in economics from Harvard and her doctorate in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
  
  Dr. Collins is currently the Edward M. Gramlich Collegiate Professor of Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and professor of economics at the College of Literature, Sciences and the Arts at the University of Michigan. She was the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy Dean from 2007-2017. Before her time at the University of Michigan, she was on the economics faculty at Georgetown and Harvard universities and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
  
  She currently serves on the board of directors for the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and National Bureau of Economic Research and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Her research interests center on understanding and fostering economic growth in industrial, emerging market and developing countries.
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• Rachel Croson - University of Minnesota

  Rachel T. A. Croson became Executive Vice President and Provost on March 30, 2020. She completed her undergraduate work in economics and philosophy with a minor in political science at the University of Pennsylvania before receiving her master’s degree and doctorate in economics from Harvard University. 
  
  Dr. Croson came to the University of Minnesota from Michigan State University, where she served as dean of the College of Social Science and Michigan State University Foundation Professor of Economics. She also served as dean of the School of Business at the University of Texas at Arlington, division director for Social and Economic Sciences at the National Science Foundation, professor and director of the Negotiations Center at the University of Texas at Dallas, and associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

  Her research focuses on bargaining and negotiation as well as public goods provision, and uses experimental approaches to study management. She has served on the Editorial Boards of the American Economic Review, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Journal of International Business Studies, and Decision and Risk Analysis. She is known for her papers on gender differences in economic behavior and for her mentorship and advice to women in the economics profession, and was the 2017 winner of the Carolyn Shaw Bell Award from the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession.

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• Elizabeth Spiller - University of Nebraska-Lincoln

  Elizabeth Spiller became Executive Vice Chancellor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in March, 2020.  She earned her bachelor’s in English literature from Amherst College. She holds a master’s in English and a doctorate in American language and literature from Harvard University.
  
  Dr. Spiller previously served as dean of the College of Letters and Science at the University of California at Davis as well as dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences at Virginia Tech. Her higher education experience includes appointments at four Research 1 institutions (University of California at Davis, Virginia Tech, Florida State University and the University of North Texas). 
  
  A scholar of Renaissance literature, she specializes in early modern literature and culture with an emphasis on the history of reading, and on literature and science. She is the author of two books,Reading and the History of Race in the Renaissance(2011) and Science, Reading and Renaissance Literature: The Art of Making Knowledge, 1580-1670 (2004), both published by Cambridge University Press. She has also edited two collections and is widely published. Spiller has twice been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and earned a Fulbright Fellowship.

   

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• Kathleen Hagerty - Northwestern University

  Kathleen M. Hagerty became the Interim Provost at Northwestern University on April 1, 2020. She completed her bachelor’s in mathematics, masters of business administration and masters of science in operations research at the University of California, Berkeley. She earned her Ph.D. in economics at Stanford University.
  
  She joined Kellogg School of Management more than 30 years ago and holds the First Chicago Professorship in Finance. Dr. Hagerty has held numerous leadership positions within Kellogg, including serving two terms as senior associate dean of faculty and research, two terms as chair of the finance department and two years as faculty director of Kellogg’s Ph.D. programs.
  
  Her work has studied the micro-structure of securities markets, disclosure regulation, insider trading regulation and the effectiveness of self-regulatory organizations. Her research has appeared in journals such asThe Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Political Economy and The Journal of Finance. She received a Bradley Foundation Research Fellowship and received the D.P. Jacobs Prize for the Most Significant Paper in the Journal of Financial Intermediation. She has also been a member of the editorial board of the Review of Financial Studies and the Journal of Financial Markets.

   

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• Bruce McPheron - Ohio State University

  Bruce A. McPheron was named Executive Vice President and Provost at The Ohio State University in June 2016. He earned his bachelor’s degree in entomology at Ohio State and a master's degree in biology and a doctorate in entomology at the University of Illinois.

  He joined The Ohio State University after serving for three and one-half years as Dean of Pennsylvania State University’s College of Agricultural Sciences. He served as chair of the Policy Board of Directors of Agriculture for the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities. Currently, Dr. McPheron is a member of the Discovery Theme executive team and leads the university’s Food Production and Security theme. 

  Dr. McPheron’s research expertise focused on the use of genetic tools to examine population structure in pest insects. His molecular diagnostic methods for source identification of Mediterranean fruit fly developed in his laboratory have been adopted by USDA-APHIS and several state and international agencies. He has taught a wide range of classes in entomology and has traveled internationally sharing his expertise.

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• Nicholas P. Jones - Pennsylvania State University

  Nicholas P. Jones became the Executive Vice President and Provost of Pennsylvania State University on July 1, 2013. A native of New Zealand, he received a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from the University of Auckland in 1980; he received master’s and doctoral degrees, also in civil engineering, from the California Institute of Technology in 1981 and 1986, respectively.

  Dr. Jones began his career as a member of the faculty in the Department of Civil Engineering at Johns Hopkins University in 1986 and was appointed chair of the department in 1999. He accepted a position as professor and head of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2002, before returning to Johns Hopkins to take the role of dean in 2004. He was named the school’s inaugural Benjamin T. Rome Dean in 2008.

  He maintains professional associations with the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and the American Association for Wind Engineering, including service as president from 2009-2010. Throughout his career, he has received numerous awards both for teaching and research, including Johns Hopkins’ George Owen (1987) and Robert Pond (1991) teaching awards, an NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award (1989); the ASCE’s Huber Research Prize (1997) and Robert H. Scanlan Medal (2007); and the JHU Alumni Association Excellence in Teaching Award (2007).

  Jones has served on a number of national committees, including ASCE’s National Infrastructure Policy Committee, the National Science Foundation’s blue-ribbon panel to review engineering research centers, and currently, the Public Policy Committee of the Engineering Deans Institute. From 1999 to 2004, he served as international editor of the Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics.

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• Jay T. Akridge - Purdue University

  Jay T. Akridge was named Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs and Diversity in November 2017. He received his doctorate in agricultural economics in 1986 from Purdue University specializing in marketing and finance. His master’s degree in agricultural economics with an emphasis in agribusiness management and finance is also from Purdue. Dr. Akridge earned his bachelor’s degree — a double major in agriculture and business administration — in 1982 from Murray State University in Murray, KY.
  
  Dr. Akridge was appointed Purdue University Dean of Agriculture in 2009, prior to being named dean, Dr. Akridge was the James and Lois Ackerman Professor of Agricultural Economics and served as Director of the Center for Food and Agricultural Business and the MS-MBA in food and agribusiness management (a partnership with the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University). He served as Interim Vice Provost for Engagement at Purdue in 2007–08.
  
  Dr. Akridge was named a University Faculty Scholar in 2000. In 1996, he received the Charles Murphy Award for Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching — Purdue’s highest teaching award. He was added to the Purdue University Book of Great Teachers in 2003 and was also awarded the USDA Food and Ag Science Excellence in Teaching Award that year.
  
  His research has examined the buying behavior of commercial agricultural producers, innovations in marketing strategies by agribusiness firms, and adoption of new technology by agribusiness. He has worked with agribusiness managers in the areas of strategy and marketing in more than 20 countries including Lithuania, Hungary, Australia, Argentina, Cameroon, and China. 

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• Christopher Molloy - Rutgers University-New Brunswick

  

  Christopher J. Molloy was officially appointed the Chancellor for the Rutgers flagship campus in February, 2019. He had served as Interim Chancellor since July, 2018. Molloy received his bachelor’s degree in pharmacy from Rutgers and his doctoral degree from the joint Rutgers Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School/Graduate School–New Brunswick. He was a post-doctoral fellow at the National Cancer Institute.
  
  Dr. Molloy joined Rutgers in 2007 as dean of the Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy. In 2011, he was appointed interim provost for biomedical and health sciences and successfully managed the complex integration of Rutgers and most of the former University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) in 2013. Molloy also served as interim chancellor of Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences and then Senior Vice President for the Office of Research and Economic Development until his appointment as interim Chancellor. 
  
  At Rutgers, he holds a faculty position as Distinguished Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology and is a member of the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, the American Association for Cancer Research, and the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and the American Pharmacists Association. He was elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2016.
  
  Prior to joining Rutgers, Molloy held senior research and management positions at Johnson & Johnson, 3-Dimensional Pharmaceuticals Inc., and Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute. He is also a licensed pharmacist in New Jersey. 

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• Karl Scholz - University of Wisconsin-Madison

  Karl Scholz became Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs of the University of Wisconsin-Madison on August 5, 2019. His undergraduate degree is from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, and his PhD is from Stanford University. 

  Prior to this appointment, Dr.  Scholz was the Dean of the College of Letters & Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He was named the Nellie June Gray Professor of Economic Policy in the department of economics, which he joined in 1988. He directed the Institute for Research on Poverty at University of Wisconsin–Madison from 2000-2004. In 1997-98, he was the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax Analysis at the U.S. Treasury Department, and from 1990-91 he was a senior staff economist at the Council of Economic Advisors.

  Dr. Scholz researches on topics including household savings, the earned income tax credit and low-wage labor markets, financial barriers to higher education, and bankruptcy laws. His research has appeared in economics journals, including The American Economic Review, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Political Economy, and the Review of Economic Studies.

  In 2007,Dr. Scholz and his colleagues, Ananth Seshadri and Surachai Khitatrakun, were awarded the twelfth annual TIAA-CREF Paul A. Samuelson Award for Outstanding Scholarly Writing on Lifelong Financial Security for their paper "Are Americans Saving 'Optimally' for Retirement." He is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

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• Ka Yee C. Lee - University of Chicago (Affiliate)

  Ka Yee C. Lee was named Provost of the University of Chicago on February 1, 2020. Ka Yee received her undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from Brown University, and her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in applied physics at Harvard University. She did postdoctoral training at Stanford University and the University of California, Santa Barbara. 
  
  Dr. Lee’s research focus lies in the area of membrane biophysics, and she is the author or co-author of more than 125 scholarly publications. She joined the University of Chicago in 1998 as an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and was appointed full professor in 2008. She also has academic appointments in the James Franck Institute, the Institute for Biophysical Dynamics and as the Vice Provost for Research for the university. 
  
  Dr. Lee is an elected member of the College of Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and a fellow of the American Physical Society. She was a Searle Scholar, a David and Lucile Packard Fellow for Science and Engineering, and a Sloan Research Fellow. At the University of Chicago, she was a recipient of the Llewellyn John and Harriet Manchester Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, and the inaugural recipient in 2013 of the Arthur L. Kelly Prize for Exceptional Faculty Service in the Physical Sciences Division.
  

  
  
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