Brown official picked as U of C president
(Crain's)—Robert Zimmer, provost of Brown University, has been picked as the 13th president of the University of Chicago.
The university's presidential search committee selected Mr. Zimmer, 58, to succeed Don M. Randel, who served as president since 2000 and will become president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation this summer.
The university's board of trustees will meet Friday to vote on Mr. Zimmer's nomination for president. If trustees approve, he will take the post on July 1.
"I am honored to have this opportunity to work with the entire university community—trustees, faculty, students, administrators, alumni and friends—to advance the university in the framework of its enduring values and to enhance the partnerships that enable the university to contribute in important ways to the communities in which we live," Mr. Zimmer said in a release.
Leading the University of Chicago would mark Mr. Zimmer's return to the Hyde Park campus. He was a faculty member for more than 20 years before taking the provost position at Brown University in 2002.
"We are thrilled to welcome him back to campus," James Crown, chairman of the University's Board of Trustees, said in a release.
Mr. Zimmer was vice president for research and vice president of Argonne National Laboratory before leaving University of Chicago. During his two-decade tenure, he had also served as deputy provost and chairman of the mathematics department. He was also a Max Mason Distinguished Service Professor in Mathematics.
Mr. Zimmer is a specialist in geometry, Lie groups and differential geometry. He has authored "Ergodic Theory and Semisimple Groups" and "Essential Results in Functional Analysis" as well as numerous research articles. He served on the board of mathematic sciences of the National Research Council and was a recipient of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship.
He graduated summa cum laude from Brandeis University in 1968 and earned his Ph.D. in mathematics in 1975 from Harvard University.
