Office of the President
Provost and Senior Vice President Winston Oluwole “Wole” Soboyejo––a highly accomplished academic and administrative leader––assumed the role of interim WPI president in May 2022.
In November 2022, the university announced Grace Wang, PhD, a materials scientist and highly accomplished and collaborative leader in higher education, government, and industry, has been selected as the 17th president of WPI. Elected by the WPI Board of Trustees after an extensive national search, President-elect Wang will join the community on April 3, 2023.
Interim President Winston Oluwole “Wole” Soboyejo
Provost and Senior Vice President Winston Oluwole “Wole” Soboyejo was appointed interim president by the Board of Trustees in February 2022 and assumed the role on May 16, 2022. A highly accomplished academic and administrative leader, he first joined WPI in 2016 as the Bernard M. Gordon Dean of Engineering and was named provost and senior vice president in 2019.
Known for being a collaborator with great respect for the knowledge and experience of those around him, as provost Soboyejo leveraged his noteworthy record of building global research and educational partnerships to help launch The Global School at WPI. He also joined key stakeholders in facilitating interdisciplinary research teams that are driving new collaborations and innovations—and he worked closely with trustees, administration, and faculty to bring about new opportunities for teaching faculty including a tenure track.
- Winston “Wole” Soboyejo, interim president
Get to Know President-Elect Grace Wang
Learn more about WPI's 17th president Grace Wang, PhD, who will assume the the presidency on April 3, 2023.
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See More AnnouncementsBuilding Dedicated Communities
As Provost, Interim President Soboyejo was instrumental in uniting faculty, staff, and researchers to build dedicated communities in four interdisciplinary areas where the university has well-established strengths, recognizing the potential to make important impacts is multiplied when talents and passions are applied. By eliminating silos, these boundary-breaking communities are fostering interdisciplinary scholarship and research, providing opportunities for faculty members to work together in creative—and even unconventional—ways, and strengthening WPI’s ability to make lives better. Learn more about these four groups: Smart World, Materials Reimagined (MatR), BioPoint, and Global Initiatives.
Theory and Practice: Our Founding Tradition Since 1865
The nation’s third-oldest private technological university, WPI was founded amid the bustle of the American Industrial Revolution, taking a unique approach to preparing the professional scientists and engineers who would make the discoveries, invent the technologies, and found the companies needed to drive the development of a young nation. WPI’s distinctive approach to education began with a compromise that led to a breakthrough: combining a college that would provide a scientific education to young people destined for emerging technical careers with a school that could elevate the traditional apprenticeship system for mechanics and other technical tradespeople. By blending these visions, WPI created a new approach to higher education unlike any that had come before—one that combined theory with practice. This Two Towers Tradition has guided the university for more than 150 years.