Cornell University will have a new president starting next spring. The board of trustees Monday unanimously selected Martha Pollack as the permanent successor to President Elizabeth Garrett, who died in March of colon cancer after only eight months on the job. Since then, former President Hunter Rawlings III has been serving on an interim basis. Pollack has been Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs at the University of Michigan since 2013. She'll take the helm at Cornell April 17th.
“I am humbled and honored to have been elected to lead this great university,” Pollack said. “As a private university with a public mission, Cornell is the embodiment of my own deeply held belief in the ability of knowledge to improve the human condition. I can’t wait to get started, and I look forward to meeting and working with Cornell’s outstanding faculty, students, staff and alumni in Ithaca, New York City and around the globe.”
Prior to becoming provost, Pollack served the University of Michigan as vice provost for academic and budgetary affairs, dean of the School of Information, and associate chair for computer science and engineering in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. She has been on the faculty at Michigan since 2000.
