Harvard University Names Claudine Gay Its 30th President

CAMBRIDGE, MA — Claudine Gay will make history in July when she steps up as Harvard University's 30th president and the first Black person to take on the role, according to The Harvard Gazette.

The daughter of Haitian immigrants, Gay has served as the Edgerley Family Dean of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences since 2018 and has been teaching at the university since 2006.

Gay received her bachelor’s degree in 1992 from Stanford, where she majored in economics, and received her Ph.D. in government in 1998 from Harvard, according to the Gazette.

“Claudine is a remarkable leader who is profoundly devoted to sustaining and enhancing Harvard’s academic excellence, to championing both the value and the values of higher education and research, to expanding opportunity, and to strengthening Harvard as a fount of ideas and a force for good in the world,” said Penny Pritzker, senior fellow of the Harvard Corporation and chair of Harvard’s presidential search committee.

In a press released following her election, Gay said, “As I start my tenure, there’s so much more for me to discover about this institution that I love, and I’m looking forward to doing just that, with our whole community.”