Robyn E. Hannigan has been appointed the nineteenth president of Ursinus College in Collegeville, Pennsylvania. She will begin her new duties on July 1, 2022.
Ursinus College enrolls just under 1,500 students, according to the most recent statistics furnished by the U.S. Department of Education. Women make up 49 percent of the student body.
“I think we can overcome so much if we make an effort to listen,” Dr. Hannigan said. “The truth is, students are coming to me with multiple layers that I don’t understand. I have those layers, too — we all do. Those different lived experiences impact our world views, academic pursuits, and the way we talk and interact with one another. We need to work harder to hear those personal stories.”
Since 2019, Dr. Hannigan has been named provost at Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York. Earlier, she was a faculty member and the founding dean of the School for the Environment at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. Earlier in her career, she served as a program officer at the National Science Foundation, co-founder and chief science officer at GeoMed Analytical, and a faculty member at Arkansas State University. An accomplished researcher with four patents, Dr. Hannigan founded two separate start-ups improving technological and diagnostical processes.
Dr. Hannigan is a graduate of the College of New Jersey where she majored in biology. She holds a master’s degree in geology from the University at Buffalo of the State University of New York, and a master’s degree and Ph.D. in earth and environmental science from the University of Rochester in New York.