Stanford has elevated its business school dean, Jonathan Levin, to lead the university as its new president, replacing an interim leader who took over after former president Marc Tessier-Lavigne resigned under a cloud of academic misconduct claims.
Stanford board of trustees chair Jerry Yang said on Thursday that Levin, 51, was the unanimous choice of the search committee and trustees. Levin, an economist, Stanford alum and member of President Joe Biden’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, takes charge on Aug. 1.
“Jon brings a rare combination of qualities: a deep understanding and love of Stanford, an impressive track record of academic and leadership success, the analytical prowess to tackle complex strategic issues, and a collaborative and optimistic working style,” Yang said in the news release. “He is consistently described by those who know him as principled, humble, authentic, thoughtful, and inspiring.”
Levin, whose father, Richard Levin, was president of Yale University from 1993 to 2013, becomes Stanford’s 13th president. He succeeds Richard Saller, who took over when Tessier-Lavigne left the post in September 2023.
“I am grateful and humbled to be asked to lead Stanford — a university that has meant so much to me for more than three decades,” Levin said in a news release. “When I was an undergraduate, Stanford opened my mind, nurtured my love for math and literature, and inspired me to pursue an academic career. In the years since, it has given me opportunities to pursue ideas in collaboration with brilliant colleagues, teach exceptional students, and bring people together to achieve ambitious collective goals around the university.”
Timothy Bresnahan, emeritus professor of economics at Stanford, described Levin as an “extremely successful” scholar, department chair and dean.
“He combines extraordinarily good judgment with superhuman niceness,” Bresnahan said. “He is calm under pressure. There appear to be about 48 hours in his day.”
Levin will need those qualities in his new job to navigate highly charged differences on campus over the Gaza War, along with “hundreds of broader societal issues to show up as higher education headaches in recent times,” Bresnahan said. “Even before that it was a hard job, with fundraising obligations, a necessarily very decentralized organization and responsibility for everything.”
Stanford sophomore Adrianna Zhang, a public policy major, said she was “a bit concerned and curious about how he will address the issues of protest and speech on campus.”
A January update from Stanford’s presidential search committee referred to free speech as “the lifeblood of a vibrant academic community, whereby the free and open exchange of ideas challenges and expands our thinking.” The university’s president “should lead in addressing the challenge in all its complexity,” the committee said.
Levin’s career at Stanford started in 2000 as an assistant professor of economics. Eight years later he became a full professor, and he chaired the economics department from 2011 to 2014.
He took over the deanship of the Stanford Graduate School of Business eight years ago after the previous dean, Garth Saloner, resigned during a scandal over his relationship with a professor at the school who was married to another professor.
Levin received two undergraduate degrees from Stanford, in English and math, in 1994, before obtaining a master’s in economics from Oxford University in 1996 and a PhD in the same field from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1999.
As a member of Biden’s advisory group since 2021, Levin has researched issues, including extreme weather and the use of artificial intelligence for scientific discovery, Stanford said.
Levin is married to Amy Levin, a doctor of internal medicine at Private Medical in Menlo Park who has a Yale University medical degree and a master’s from the Harvard School of Public Health. The couple have three children.
The man whose downfall opened the way to Levin’s appointment, Tessier-Lavigne, stepped down after a months-long investigation by a special committee of the university’s trustees concluded that although he did not personally engage in any fraud or falsification of scientific data, others in his lab had manipulated research data published in five papers. Tessier-Lavigne, the committee concluded, should have more diligently sought to correct the published record.
When Tessier-Lavigne became president, before the misconduct allegations threw the university into turmoil under a nationwide spotlight, Donald Trump was a long-shot candidate for America’s highest office, and Stanford operated in a much smoother world, said Stanford Law professor Henry Greely, who said it made sense to appoint someone from within the university.
“We at Stanford have been and are going through a lot in the last few years,” Greely said. “It would have been a mistake to hire someone who would’ve needed a year or two to get up to speed on the place.”
Greely said he was pleased the trustees chose someone relatively young. “Energy is really important,” Greely said. “You want eight to 12 years out of president.”
Still, Levin, like all Stanford presidents before him, is a White man, raising concerns over the diversity of the university’s leadership.
“I think it’s disappointing to see Stanford continue to just put White men in power always,” said Stanford senior Nalani Santos, adding that she was not criticizing Levin himself because she did not know about his background. “There’s a lot of candidates and a lot people from diverse backgrounds that could better represent the school.”
Greely seconded those concerns.
“I am a little disappointed that the best person for the job didn’t, in the decision makers’ opinion, turn out to be a woman or a person of color,” he said.
The search committee, in an open letter Thursday to the Stanford community, said more than 800 people were nominated to lead the school. The “remarkable” candidate pool “showcased a wide range of experiences, perspectives, and qualities that reflected the rich diversity of our community,” the letter said.
“Dean Levin has excelled at bringing people together,” Yang and the search committee said in a statement, “and has repeatedly exhibited a commitment to building a pluralistic and respectful community.”
Staff writer Ryan Macasero and Bay Area News Group intern Cameron Duran contributed to this report.
