With the appointment of Neeli Bendapudi as the next president of Pennsylvania State University (see WIAReport post), the board of trustees at the University of Louisville in Kentucky has named Lori Stewart Gonzalez as interim president of the university. Since April 2021, Dr. Gonzalez has served as executive vice president and provost at the University of Louisville.
The University of Louisville is a state-operated research institution with nearly 16,000 undergraduate students and more than 6,200 graduate students, according to the most recent data available from the U.S. Department of Education. Women make up 55 percent of the undergraduate student body.
Prior to her being named provost at the University of Louisville, Dr. Gonzalez was vice chancellor for academic, faculty, and student affairs at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis. Before taking that position in 2015, Dr. Gonzalez served as senior advisor to the senior vice president for academic affairs at the University of North Carolina General Administration, as provost and executive chancellor at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, and associate dean and then dean of the College of Health Sciences at the University of Kentucky.
A native of Rockcastle County, Kentucky, Dr. Gonzalez earned her bachelor’s degree in speech pathology and audiology from the University of Kentucky. She holds a master’s degree in communication disorders from Eastern Kentucky University and a doctorate in speech from the University of Florida.