Rebecca Blank is an internationally respected economist who has served as chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison since 2013. She has worked in three different presidential administrations, most recently serving as deputy secretary and acting secretary of commerce under President Barack Obama. Blank served on the faculty at Northwestern from 1989 to 1999. She later served as the inaugural Joan and Sanford Weill Dean of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan where she was also on the faculty of the Economics Department. Blank also spent time on the faculty of Princeton University.
I am honored and delighted to accept the job as Northwestern’s next president. Northwestern is a school that I have known and admired for years. Its reputation as a top-rated educational and research institution has grown each decade. It will be my mission to make sure the institution’s reputation and quality continues to accelerate.”
Rebecca Blank, President-Elect of Northwestern University