Susan Herbst, Ph.D., the incoming president of the University of Connecticut, took time to meet with leaders from the Health Center this week during a brief visit to Connecticut.

Herbst is currently the executive vice chancellor and chief academic officer for the University System of Georgia, and will officially assume her new responsibilities at UConn until July. Until then, she is making occasional trips to Connecticut and becoming involved in key issues facing the University and the Health Center.

At the Health Center, she met with Dr. Cato T. Laurencin, vice president for health affairs and dean of the UConn School of Medicine, and his senior team to learn about progress in the academic medical center’s research, educational and clinical realms.

Late last year, the University’s Board of Trustees voted to appoint Herbst as UConn’s 15th president, following an intensive six-month search. She is the first woman to be selected as the University’s president since the school’s founding in 1881 and was chosen from a pool of more than 100 applicants for the position.

At the University System of Georgia, Herbst continues to hold a faculty appointment as a professor of public policy at Georgia Tech. She is the author of many scholarly journal articles and books, including her most recent book about incivility in American politics, Rude Democracy, released in September. Herbst was previously provost and executive vice president for academic affairs at SUNY-Albany from 2005 to 2007, and also served as acting president of the school for a year. She also served as the dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Temple University from 2003 to 2005.

Herbst joined Northwestern University as an assistant professor in 1989 and remained there until 2003. There, she rose to become chair of the political science department and associate dean for faculty affairs.