The University of Wisconsin System named the UW-Madison provost and four academics from out of state as finalists to be the next UW-Madison chancellor.
The list released Wednesday — comprising two men and three women — includes no politicians and just one candidate with known ties to the university. Another candidate spent several years working in a leadership position at a large corporation but, like the others, has spent most of his career in academia.
The finalists are Ann Cudd, provost at the University of Pittsburgh; Marie Lynn Miranda, a University of Notre Dame statistics professor and former provost; Jennifer Mnookin, law school dean at the University of California Los Angeles; Daniel Reed, a University of Utah computer science professor and former provost; and John Karl Scholz, provost at UW-Madison.
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Their names emerged from an applicant pool that included 37 candidates. Of those, 16 self-reported as a person of color and seven were women, according to System data provided in response to a Wisconsin State Journal records request.
System spokesperson Mark Pitsch said the finalists’ ages weren’t readily available Wednesday and he did not say how many of them self-reported as people of color.
Finalists are scheduled to visit the campus next week and take questions during a public forum.
A 21-member search committee chaired by UW Board of Regents Vice President Karen Walsh sifted through the names and selected a number of semifinalists.
A smaller Regents committee — chaired by board President Ed Manydeeds and including Walsh, Amy Bogost, Mike Jones, Tracey Klein and John Miller — selected finalists last week. The group will recommend a single pick to the full board, which is expected to vote on the hire sometime next month.
Outgoing Chancellor Rebecca Blank departs this summer to become the president of Northwestern University. Her last day is May 31.
The System hired AGB Search to assist in the chancellor search and is paying a flat fee of $110,000, records show. The fee does not cover out-of-pocket expenses, such as candidate background checks, travel expenses and advertising, but is far less than what other search firms have charged. The System paid WittKieffer, the firm that oversaw the System’s most recent presidential search, closer to $200,000.
More information about each candidate from their submitted resumes follows.
Cudd
Ann Cudd became provost at the University of Pittsburgh in 2018. She previously served as dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences at Boston University. She also held a variety of leadership positions at the University of Kansas, including dean of undergraduate studies.
Cudd earned her bachelor’s degree in math and philosophy from Swarthmore College and got her doctorate from the University of Pittsburgh.
Miranda
Marie Lynn Miranda became provost at the University of Notre Dame in 2020. Before that, she was a provost at Rice University from 2015 to 2019. She was dean of the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan from 2012 to 2015. She started her academic career as a professor at Duke.
Miranda earned her bachelor’s degree in math and economics from Duke University and a doctorate from Harvard University.
Mnookin
Jennifer Mnookin has been dean of the law school at the University of California, Los Angeles since 2015. She’s also taught at the University of Virginia School of Law and Harvard Law School. She has published extensively on issues relating to forensic science, including latent fingerprint identification, handwriting expertise and DNA evidence.
Mnookin earned her bachelor’s degree in social studies from Harvard, a law degree from Yale University and a doctorate degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Reed
Daniel Reed came to the University of Utah in 2018 and served as its provost until 2021. Before that, he worked as the vice president for research and economic development at the University of Iowa. From 2009 to 2012, he was a corporate vice president at Microsoft. He was also a computer science professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Reed earned his bachelor’s degree in computer science at Missouri University of Science & Technology and got his doctorate from Purdue University.
Scholz
John Karl Scholz has worked at UW-Madison since 1988. He taught economics for more than two decades, became dean of the College of Letters and Science in 2013 and was elevated to provost in 2019. He worked as a deputy assistant secretary in the Office of Tax Analysis at the U.S. Treasury Department from 1997 to 1998. He was also a senior staff economist for the Council of Economic Advisers from 1990 to 1991.
Scholz earned his bachelor’s degree in math and economics from Carleton College and got a doctorate from Stanford University.