Dear Campus Community,
I am pleased to announce that Catherine P. Koshland has agreed to serve as interim executive vice chancellor and provost. Cathy will begin transitioning into the role in May, with her appointment effective on July 1, 2021.
This is a critical time for our campus as we plan our transition back to primarily in-person operations, continue on our journey to becoming an anti-racist campus, manage our resource-constrained finances, and make strategic investments in service of our mission and continued excellence. Cathy has been instrumental in these efforts in the past and is well-prepared to lead this work into the future.
After earning her master’s and doctoral degrees in mechanical engineering from Stanford University and her bachelor’s in fine arts from Haverford College, Cathy joined the Berkeley campus in 1984 and is now the Wood-Calvert Professor in Engineering, a professor of environmental health sciences at Berkeley Public Health, and a member of the Energy and Resources Group faculty. She has served our community in many senior leadership roles most recently as vice chancellor for undergraduate education, a position she has held since 2014. Previously, she was vice provost for academic planning and facilities, a role that was expanded to include teaching and learning. She also served as chair of the Berkeley Division of the Academic Senate for the 2002-2003 term.
Over the years, Cathy has taken on increasing responsibility and currently leads several initiatives. Her accomplishments are too many to name but I would like to highlight her work on the Discovery Experiences for Undergraduates, the Digital Learning Strategy Initiative, and her work co-leading the Instructional Resilience Task Force, which helped prepare us to transition to remote learning at the beginning of the pandemic. You can learn more about Cathy and this appointment on Berkeley News.
Cathy will serve as interim executive vice chancellor and provost while we launch a national search for a permanent replacement for Paul Alivisatos, who will be leaving the university to become president of the University of Chicago. We plan to appoint an interim leader for the division of undergraduate education during this transition.
Please join me in thanking Cathy for taking on this new role, where she will bring to bear her leadership acumen and decades of service to our campus.
This message has been sent to all UC Berkeley faculty, staff and students.