Announcing Two Finalist Candidates for WPI's Next Provost

The Provost search committee, after careful consideration and in collaboration with President Grace Wang, announced on April 9, 2024 its selection of two final candidates for on-campus interviews.

Each finalist will be on-campus for two days: April 16-17 and April 22-23, during which they are scheduled to make a presentation that will be open to all faculty and staff. These presentations will focus on how each candidate would support faculty, students, and staff in finding balance and success if they were to be selected as WPI’s next Provost.

These visits are an important opportunity for our community to engage with the candidates and assess their qualifications.

Here are the details for the open presentations:

• Candidate 1: Wednesday, April 17, 11:00-12:20, Atwater Kent 219
• Candidate 2: Tuesday, April 23, 1:00-2:20, Unity Hall 500

In order to ensure the highest level of active interaction between the candidates and members of our community, and to respect other concerns about Zoom meetings, the search committee has decided to conduct all meetings in-person during the campus visits.

The search committee encourages all members of the community to prioritize these meetings so you have opportunities to meet our candidates and provide feedback to the search committee. We appreciate that given competing demands at this time of D-term, you may need to adjust your schedules to attend.

We will make each candidate’s CV and cover letter available via Canvas – Provost Search prior to their visits. We ask that you not share the names of the candidates and their materials with anyone else.

• The first candidate’s materials will be available for review by noon Friday, April 12, 2024
• The second candidate’s materials will be available for review by noon Friday, April 19, 2024

After each visit is concluded, a separate survey be sent to collect community feedback about the candidate. Your responses will be crucial in deciding who our next Provost will be.

The search committee recognizes that our second candidate will be visiting campus during the Passover holiday. We apologize to those community members whose participation will be limited as a result. Our two goals were to accommodate each candidate’s availability and to complete the campus visits before the end of D-term to maximize community engagement.

We hope you will make it a priority to review the candidates’ materials, participate in their on-campus interviews as best you can, and provide the search committee with your constructive feedback.

The Provost Search Committee

• Bogdan Vernescu, Search Committee Chair, Vice Provost for Research; and Professor of Mathematical Sciences
• Mark Richman, Search Committee Vice Chair, Associate Professor, Aerospace Engineering; and Secretary of the Faculty
• Danielle Cote, Assistant Professor, Mechanical and Materials Engineering
• Adrienne Hall-Phillips, Associate Professor, Business
• Samuel Levitan ’24 (BBT, BS)
• Rebecca Moody, Assistant Professor of Teaching, Humanities & Arts
• Sydney Packard ’20 (CHE, BS), ’27 (CHE, PhD)
• Paul Reilly, Assistant Dean, Student Success
• Kris Wobbe, Professor, Chemistry & Biochemistry, and Integrative and Global Studies; Director, Center for Project-Based Learning