Dr. Melissa Gilliam is Boston University’s eleventh president. She is an interdisciplinary researcher combining medicine, public health, social sciences, and humanities. She joined Boston University from The Ohio State University, where she served as executive vice president and provost from 2021 to 2023. During her tenure at Ohio State, Dr. Gilliam placed a keen focus on academic eminence, access and a ordability, and external impact. She spent most of her career at the University of Chicago, where she was the Ellen H. Block Distinguished Service Professor of Health Justice and vice provost.

A physician by training, Dr. Gilliam’s research focuses on developing innovative biomedical and humanistic interventions to promote adolescent health and well-being. Her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the National Science Foundation, among others.

Dr. Gilliam is a strong proponent of liberal arts education, and her own education— which includes degrees in English literature, philosophy and politics, medicine, and public health—reflects her commitment to finding new ways to combine and cross disciplines, toward generating broader impact. She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, and a graduate of Yale University, Oxford University, Harvard University, and the University of Illinois at Chicago.