Katherine S. Newman

Katherine Newman became the Provost and Executive Vice President of Academic Affairs at the University of California in January of 2023. She was simultaneously appointed as the Chancellor’s Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Public Policy at UC Berkeley.

Dr. Newman is the chief academic officer of the University, working closely with all ten campuses of the nation’s largest and most accomplished public research university. She is the author of sixteen books on topics ranging from technical education and apprenticeship to the impact of tight labor markets on the economic and social mobility of the nation’s working poor. She has served as the Forbes Class of 1941 Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs and Director of the Institute for International and Regional Studies at Princeton, the founding Dean of Social Science at the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study and the director of Harvard’s Multidisciplinary Program on Inequality and Social Policy, where she served as the Malcolm Weiner Professor of Urban Studies in the Kennedy School of Government.

In her capacity as system wide provost, and in collaboration with the University’s new President, James Milliken, Dr. Newman is developing new models of higher education that aim to improve the competitiveness of UC graduates in the California labor market, expand the possibilities of system-wide programs that benefit from the “power of ten,” bolster the university’s ability to attract international talent, increase opportunities for the commercialization of faculty discovery research, and deepen an already historic dedication to the upward mobility of low income, first generation students.