The UConn Board of Trustees voted unanimously Wednesday morning to appoint interim president Radenka Maric as its 17th president.
Maric takes over following a year of leadership instability at UConn, which has seen several president changes since Thomas Katsouleas suddenly resigned from the post last summer, after less than three years on the job.
Katsouleas was replaced on an interim basis by Andrew Agwunobi, who left the post earlier this year to take a job with health insurance company Humana.
Agwunobi was replaced on an interim basis by Maric, a longtime UConn employee who was vice president for research, innovation and entrepreneurship.
UConn launched its presidential search earlier this year with the appointment of a 50-person advisory committee, which worked with Parker Executive Search to recruit and review candidates from all over globe, including from Canada and the United Kingdom, among others.
UConn officials said more than 150 candidates either applied or were nominated for the president’s post with the two remaining finalists interviewed this past week.
UConn adopted a $3.3 billion fiscal 2023 operating budget in June. The university has more than 32,000 students; 275,000 alumni; and operates 14 schools and colleges.
Maric joined UConn’s School of Engineering faculty in 2010 and holds the rank of Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor. She is also the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund Professor of Sustainable Energy in the Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering and Department of Materials Science and Engineering.
Maric is the first internal candidate to be named to the position since Harry Hartley was selected president in 1990, and is UConn’s second female president after President Emeritus Susan Herbst, who served from 2010 to 2019, the school said.
