Jennifer Mnookin Appointed Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison

Jennifer L. Mnookin has been selected as the thirtieth chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madson. She will take office on August 4.

The University of Wisconsin-Madson enrolls more than 32,000 undergraduate students and nearly 12,000 graduate students, according to the latest statistics from the U.S. Department of Education. Women make up 52 percent of the undergraduate student body.

“There are two things that make this place so special. One is just the incredible range of research activities across so many fields at such a high level,” Dr. Mnookin said. “The second is just how much people care about each other, the community, and the institution. From the students I met with to faculty to staff, there were an enormous number of people who clearly really care about this institution and making it as strong as possible.”

Since 2015, Dr. Mnookin has been dean of the School of Law and Ralph and Shirley Shapiro Professor of Law at the University of California, Los Angeles. She joined the faculty at UCLA in 2005. Earlier, she was a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law and spent one year as a visiting professor at Harvard Law School.

Eighteen months ago, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Mnookin donated a kidney to her father, Harvard law professor Robert Mnookin. A transplant solution developed at the University of Wisconsin–Madison allowed the organ to be shipped from Los Angeles to him in Boston for successful transplantation.

Dr. Mnookin is a graduate of Harvard University, where she majored in social studies. She earned a juris doctorate at Yale Law School and a Ph.D. in the history of the social study of science and technology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.