Dear Colleagues and Students:
I have decided to appoint Pamir Alpay to the position of Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, effective today.
As you know, Pamir has served in this role on an interim basis since October 2025. Having had the opportunity to work closely with him in that interim position over the last eight months – and following numerous discussions with campus leaders and many other stakeholders – I believe strongly that Pamir is best suited to continue to lead our academic and research enterprise going forward.
His vision for the future, decisiveness, and his skill as a driven and highly effective leader and communicator make him ideal for this complex and demanding role.
What I and many other leaders at the university respect and admire most is Pamir’s determined focus to always put the best interests of the university first — whether that is through striving to bring about new achievements and successes, or in making difficult decisions that are nonetheless the right choices for UConn at a given moment in time.
During his time as Interim Provost, Pamir has already made a meaningful mark on the university. Having helped shape UConn’s strategic plan as a co-chair of that effort in his previous role, he has now worked to translate its goals into action.
At the start of his appointment, he led a reorganization of Academic Affairs and aligned the Provost’s Office around the university’s academic priorities. He has balanced a focus on new initiatives with careful attention to the day-to-day work that sustains a strong academic institution, from program assessment and accreditation preparation to promotion and tenure, academic planning, and continuous improvement across our schools and colleges.
He has also helped lead important conversations about how UConn can continue to strengthen its academic and research mission while ensuring long-term financial sustainability, engaging faculty, academic leaders, and other stakeholders across the university in those discussions. In addition, he has been instrumental in positioning UConn to lead in the rapidly evolving field of artificial intelligence through the development of a university-wide AI initiative.
These accomplishments build on Pamir’s broader record of leadership and innovation at UConn. His work advancing Connecticut’s quantum ecosystem and his role in the QuantumCT partnership have elevated the university’s national profile and positioned both UConn and the state for transformational opportunities in research, economic development, and technological innovation. Under his leadership, UConn and Yale have advanced as finalists for the National Science Foundation’s Regional Innovation Engines program, one of the nation’s most competitive opportunities to accelerate innovation and economic growth through emerging technologies.
Looking ahead, Pamir’s priorities are clear. He is committed to advancing academic excellence, supporting faculty success, ensuring our academic programs remain relevant and responsive to student and workforce needs, elevating UConn’s research enterprise, enhancing our national and global reputation, and ensuring that our students have the support and opportunities they need to thrive. Those priorities will be essential as we continue our trajectory as one of the nation’s leading public research universities.
In the fall, we had initially contemplated undertaking a search for this role, but it became clear to me and many others who have worked closely with Pamir over the last several months that he is exactly the kind of candidate we would have sought and that he would have far and away been our top choice for this position in any pool of candidates. His continuation in this role also maintains continuity and stability within the Provost’s Office and the senior team, which best serves the university as we work together to achieve our long-term goals.
As I noted when he was appointed on an interim basis, Pamir has demonstrated exceptional leadership throughout his career at UConn. Since becoming department head of Materials Science and Engineering in 2012, he has served in a series of increasingly significant leadership roles, including Associate Dean of the College of Engineering; Executive Director of the Innovation Partnership Building; Vice President for Research, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship; and most recently Interim Provost. Along the way, he has built strong partnerships with industry, government, faculty, staff, students, and community leaders.
A nationally recognized scholar and researcher, Pamir is a Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Physics whose work has attracted more than $30 million in research funding and contributed to advances in manufacturing, materials science, and related fields. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, ASM International, and the American Ceramic Society, and an elected member of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering.
Pamir earned his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Maryland and his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Türkiye.
With an impressive record of research, scholarship, innovation, and service, Pamir has played a vital role in elevating UConn’s reputation as one of the nation’s leading public research universities. I am confident he will continue to build on that success as Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs.
Please join me in congratulating Pamir on his appointment.
Radenka Maric
President
