The University of Michigan Board of Regents on Aug. 18 announced C. Cybele Raver, the current Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at Vanderbilt University, as its choice to become the university’s 17th president. Raver’s appointment will take effect Dec. 1.
Raver is a nationally recognized leader in higher education with a strong reputation in developmental social science and university strategy. Since becoming Vanderbilt’s chief academic officer in 2021, she has been instrumental in strengthening all aspects of the university’s research and academic enterprise. Among her many accomplishments, she has advanced Vanderbilt’s research enterprise, with the university surpassing $1 billion in annual research expenditures; recruited eight new deans; launched the College of Connected Computing, the university’s first new college in over 40 years; and expanded Vanderbilt’s academic footprint to New York City, San Francisco, Chattanooga, Tennessee, and West Palm Beach, Florida.
A fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Raver is also the Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Psychology and Human Development at Peabody College, where her research on children’s development, education policy, and poverty has attracted more than $24 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation and others. Before joining Vanderbilt, she served as deputy provost at New York University and held faculty roles at the University of Chicago and Cornell University. Raver holds a Ph.D. in developmental psychology from Yale University.