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Julie Allen

Julie Allen was appointed vice president and secretary to the Board of Trustees in spring of 2026, following her leadership in the role of board secretary and advisor to the president, which she assumed in summer of 2023.

Previously, she served as a member of the senior leadership team in Alumni Relations and Development. As senior associate vice president for schools and programs, she managed more than 60 fundraisers and staff members to help University leaders set and realize their goals. Prior to that, Allen worked for seven years as director of major gifts, campaign director and director of principal gifts at the Kellogg School of Management.

Before coming to ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø, Allen served as director of development for Trinity College of Arts & Sciences at Duke University, where she solicited and closed major gifts while also managing the major gifts team and working with the Trinity Board of Visitors. She began her development career at the University of Chicago, working in the office of annual giving for seven years.

Board of Trustees

Emily Babb

Emily Babb is the Associate Vice President for Civil Rights and Title IX Compliance. She oversees the office in charge of ensuring compliance with anti-discrimination and accessibility policies and responding to reports of sexual misconduct, discrimination and harassment within the University community.

Prior to joining ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø, Babb served as associate vice chancellor for Equal Opportunity and Title IX/Title IX Coordinator at the University of Denver. Prior to that, from 2017 to 2020, she was the assistant vice president for Title IX compliance and Title IX coordinator at the University of Virginia. Babb holds her juris doctor degree from the University of Oklahoma College of Law. As an undergraduate, she studied at DePauw University where she earned a bachelor’s degree in communications and English literature.

Office of Civil Rights and Title IX Compliance

Susan M. Davis

Susan M. Davis joined ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø as Vice President for Student Affairs in April 2023. She previously served as Senior Associate Vice President for Student Affairs at the University of Virginia (UVA), following more than two decades working in law and higher education. 

Davis joined the Division of Student Affairs at UVA in 2004, where her background as the university’s Associate General Counsel and Special Assistant Attorney General helped her respond to the many legal aspects of student life at UVA. She served in a number of leadership roles at UVA, beginning as Special Advisor to the Vice President and twice serving as the Acting Vice President for Student Affairs. In 2021, Davis was named Senior Associate Vice President for Student Affairs and set about building and leading a diverse department in Charlottesville. 

She created strategic and operational goals for the division, overseeing an integrated student health & wellness center and division units including Medical Services, Counseling & Psychological Services, Student Disabilities Access Center, and Office of Health Promotion. Davis also oversaw the Student Safety & Support team at UVA and drew on her extensive legal background to provide advice and counsel to the student-run Honor and Judiciary Committees and the division’s Judicial Affairs team. The university’s Z Society recognized her with the Pale Z Award for her outstanding leadership in 2017, the same year Davis joined the Raven Society, the oldest honor society at UVA. 

Division of Student Affairs

Sumit Dhar

Sumit Dhar is interim vice president for research at ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø and the . He leads a research enterprise with approximately $1 billion in annual sponsored funding, overseeing a broad portfolio of infrastructure, services and compliance functions that support investigators across the University.

Working with senior leadership, Dhar directs core spanning animal care, research safety, research IT, sponsored research and shared facilities, as well as about two dozen interdisciplinary University-wide . His office partners closely with ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø’s schools and units to advance a high-performing, compliant and innovative research ecosystem.

A scholar of hearing science, Dhar’s research focuses on the physiology and biophysics of the inner ear, particularly sounds generated within the ear known as otoacoustic emissions, as well as on improving hearing healthcare delivery.

Amanda Distel

Amanda Distel was appointed vice president and treasurer by President Michael Schill in June 2023 and chief financial officer in August 2023.

Distel leads the University’s central budget and planning, human resources, and financial operations teams.

Before taking this role, Distel had served as senior associate vice president for finance and treasurer for ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø since 2019. In that role, she led a team of about 100 staff in the University’s Financial Operations office, comprised of accounting, research finance, tax, treasury and student finance.

Distel was senior director of finance for ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Feinberg School of Medicine from 2013 to 2019, where she led a team accountable for school-wide financial administration. She has also held finance roles at the University of Chicago, ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø’s Office of Budget and Planning, and the State of Illinois.

Office of the Executive Vice President for Business and Finance

Amy Falls

Amy Falls was appointed Vice President and Chief Investment Officer for ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø in May 2021. She is responsible for managing the University’s $13 billion diversified portfolio. The endowment supports a wide range of University operations including undergraduate and graduate financial aid, University institutes and centers, faculty positions and department chairs, research, and athletics. She is responsible for about a quarter of the University’s annual revenue.

Falls came to ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø from Rockefeller University, a biomedical research institution in New York, where she had served as chief investment officer since 2011. Prior to that, she was the founding chief investment officer of Phillips Academy Andover. In both of these roles, Falls attained top decile performance, including generating the second highest performance in 2020 among University endowments greater than $1 billion.

Ms. Falls received her B.A. in History from Georgetown University and a Masters in Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. She currently serves on the Boards of Harvard Management Corporation and The Ford Foundation and is the Chair of the Board of Phillips Academy Andover.

Ms. Falls lives in Lake Forest, IL with her husband Hartley Rogers and has three daughters.

Investment Office

Luke Figora

Luke Figora joined ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø in 2015 and is currently the Vice President and Chief Operating Officer

In his portfolio of responsibility, Figora oversees central Facilities, Safety and Security, Information Technology (which jointly reports to the Office of the Provost), Risk, Internal Audit, and Compliance, and Neighborhood and Community Relations. Prior to becoming Vice President for Operations, he was the Senior Associate Vice President and Chief Risk and Compliance Officer at ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø.

Prior to joining ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø, Luke served as the Executive Director for Risk Management at the University of Chicago and held previous positions in the commercial insurance industry. Luke was named the 2019 Risk Manager of the Year by RIMS, and was named one of Business Insurance’s 40 under 40 in 2018. In 2018-2019, he was the President of the University Risk Management and Insurance Association (URMIA) and was awarded the organization’s Distinguished Risk Manager (DRM) award in 2022.

Luke holds a master’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a bachelor’s degree in Economics from Lake Forest College.

Operations

Derrick Gragg

Dr. Derrick assumed the role of Vice President for Athletic Strategy in September 2024.

Previous to that appointment, Gragg had served as Combe Family Vice President for Athletics and Recreation since June 2021. A longtime athletic director, college sports administrator, and diversity and inclusion leader, Gragg joined the ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø family after serving as the NCAA's senior vice president for inclusion, education and community engagement.

While serving as the NCAA's senior vice president for inclusion, education and community engagement, Gragg has had a dual focus on internal and external initiatives and programming.

A former football letter-winner at Vanderbilt, Gragg has always valued the impact of academics on athletes. He earned a master's degree in sports administration from Wayne State University, then his doctorate in higher education administration from the University of Arkansas.

Stephanie Graham

Stephanie Graham joined ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø’s Office of General Counsel in 1993 and is currently the vice president and general counsel. Prior to joining ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø, Graham was a labor and employment litigation attorney with Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal in Chicago, Illinois.

Graham’s principal areas of responsibility in the Office of General Counsel are office management, labor and employment counseling, research compliance issues and litigation matters. She also advises on a number of other issues including academic medical center issues, union matters, conflict of interest issues and Title IX matters. Graham is a member of the National Association of College and University Attorneys (NACUA). She is licensed to practice in Illinois.

Office of General Counsel

Dévora Grynspan

Dévora Grynspan, vice president for international relations, works closely with the University president and other ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø leaders to advance the University's strategic goals in a global context and create greater integration between international programs and the university's strategic plan. In her role, Grynspan represents the president and the University to international constituencies, provides leadership in shaping and implementing the University's international agenda, and administers partnerships and programs that advance ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø's mission. Prior to becoming vice president in 2016, Dévora led the former Office of International Program Development (IPD), which developed and administered exchanges and study abroad programs for ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø undergraduate students. Before joining ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø, Dévora taught at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, where she also directed the Center for Latin American Studies and established the Center on European Union Studies.

International Relations

Priya Harjani

Priya Harjani is serving as Interim Vice President for Human Resources and Chief Human Resources Officer and has twice before been appointed to serve in this capacity during vacancies. She also serves as Senior Associate Vice President & Deputy General Counsel in the Office of General Counsel. Prior to joining ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø, Harjani was an attorney with a large law firm in Chicago, where she concentrated on commercial litigation.

In the Human Resources role, Harjani will lead all aspects of the HR Functions at the University – Benefits, HR Communications, Compensation, HR Business Partners, HR Operations & Payroll, Talent Acquisition, and Talent Development.

She received her law degree from ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø’s Pritzker School of Law and her undergraduate degree from University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. Harjani currently serves on the Board of the National Association of College and University Attorneys (NACUA) and is a frequent speaker at regional and national conferences.

Mark Jackson

Mark Jackson joined ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø in 2024 as the Combe Family Vice President for Athletics and Recreation, overseeing 21 varsity sports with more than 500 student-athletes, plus recreational and intramural programs.

Prior to joining ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø, Jackson served as the Vice President and Director of Athletics at Villanova University. Under his leadership, Villanova Athletics saw 14 of its varsity sports programs compete in their respective NCAA tournaments, including the men's basketball team celebrating two national championships (2016, 2018). Villanova won 39 conference championships during Jackson's tenure.

Jackson was born in Boston, Mass. He was a student-athlete at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, where he played defensive back for the Mules. He received his bachelor's degree in government from Colby and a master's degree in public policy from Trinity College.

Stacey Kostell

Stacey Kostell was named vice president and dean of enrollment in August 2023, overseeing the Office of Undergraduate Admission as well as Operations and Financial Aid. Previously, Kostell served as chief executive officer of the Coalition for College, an organization that helps students access resources to find a college that matches their academic, financial and social needs. Over the course of her 20-year career, she has led initiatives to help students graduate on time and with limited debt at major universities in Vermont, Arizona, Indiana and Illinois. At the University of Vermont, her team successfully met enrollment goals each year, improved academic quality, and lowered the admit rate by 8 percent while increasing the yield by 35 percent. A first-generation college graduate, Kostell earned her bachelor’s degree from Indiana State University and her master’s degree from Ball State University.

Jennifer L. Kunde

Jennifer is ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø’s liaison to the City of Chicago, managing all aspects of the university’s interactions with elected officials and local community groups. Her work also includes managing governmental issues of concern to ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø at both the state and federal levels, including liaison activities with legislative and executive agencies,encouraging funding for the University's research endeavors, and advocating higher education policy that benefits ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø students and faculty. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from DePaul University.

David A. Lively ('26 P)

With more than 30 years of experience in higher education advancement, David Lively has directed successful development strategies across five comprehensive fundraising campaigns, including We Will. The Campaign for ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø, which raised $6.1 billion from 174,380 donors.

In 2024, Lively was named vice president for Alumni Relations and Development. In this role, he leads a team of alumni engagement and fundraising professionals,  partners with advancement colleagues in ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø's professional schools, and serves as a member of President Michael Schill's senior staff. Lively held several previous roles at ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø, most recently senior associate vice president overseeing principal gifts, regional and international major gifts, and gift planning.

Lively earned a bachelor's degree in history from Southern Methodist University (SMU), a master's degree in history from Colorado State University, an MBA from the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business, and a certificate from the Management Development Program (MDP) at Harvard University's Graduate School of Education.

Erik Luijten

Erik Luijten has been Provost of ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø since July 2026 and served as a faculty member since 2009. He is the Liu-Wang Liming Professor of Materials Science and Engineering in the McCormick School of Engineering and has held several leadership roles at ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø, including serving as McCormick’s Associate Dean for Research and Doctoral Education. His research focuses on statistical mechanics and computational methods for materials and he is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the American Physical Society. He has dedicated a significant portion of his career to strengthening scholarship across science and the humanities, including working with the Center for Scientific Studies in the Arts and ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø’s Prison Education Program.

Office of the Provost

Eric G. Neilson

Eric G. Neilson, MD, is the vice president for medical affairs and Lewis Landsberg dean at ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Feinberg School of Medicine. He came to ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø in 2011 from the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, where he served for 13 years as the Hugh Jackson Morgan professor and chairman of the Department of Medicine. He has been a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Biostratum Inc., and NephroGenex, Inc., and is the holder of two patents. He has published more than 300 scientific articles, reviews, commentaries, editorials and books, and has edited, in collaboration with William Couser, MD, a major medical textbook titled Immunological Renal Diseases. From 2007-2013 he served as editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN), the leading kidney journal in the world.

Sean Reynolds

Sean Reynolds has served as the vice president for information technology and chief information officer at ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø since 2011. Reynolds provides leadership for the continued development of an innovative, robust and secure information technology environment throughout the University.

ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Information Technology provides support for academic research and technology, delivery of IT infrastructure and services, information security systems and compliance, administrative systems and client support services.

Prior to joining ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø, Reynolds spent 25 years in information technology roles in higher education. He chairs the Big Ten Academic Alliance of Chief Information Officers and serves on the board of trustees at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago and as vice chair for the McGaw YMCA in Evanston, Illinois. Prior to ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø, he served as the chief information officer for Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.

Jon Yates

Jon Yates joined ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø in 2017 as director of media relations and became assistant vice president of communications in October 2020, leading the University’s communications team, including media relations and crisis, emergency and internal communications. He was appointed vice president for global marketing and communications in 2023.

Prior to joining ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø, Yates served as a marketing manager at PwC. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Iowa, majoring in journalism and history, and spent more than two decades as a newspaper reporter, including 14 as reporter and columnist for the Chicago Tribune. There, he created and wrote “What’s Your Problem?” a popular consumer advocacy column. Prior to the Chicago Tribune, he reported for several daily newspapers including The Tennessean in Nashville; The Desert Sun in Palm Springs, Calif.; and the Iowa City Press-Citizen.

Office of Global Marketing and Communications