University of Michigan Appoints Santa Ono as New President – Rafu Shimpo

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Santa J. Ono, an completed biomedical researcher and the president and vice chancellor of the College of British Columbia, has been named the fifteenth president of the College of Michigan.

The Board of Regents voted unanimously to nominate Ono throughout a particular assembly July 13 in Ann Arbor. Ono, who beforehand served because the president of the College of Cincinnati and senior vice provost and deputy to the provost at Emory College, will formally step into the U-M position Oct. 13.

“On behalf of all of us seated right here and the complete College of Michigan group, right here and across the globe, I’d like to increase my warmest welcome to Dr. Santa Ono and his spouse, Wendy, who has joined him right this moment,” mentioned Paul Brown, chair of the Board of Regents, through the particular assembly.

“We sit up for assembly your daughters Sarah and Juliana, and son-in-law David, very quickly. We’re thrilled and honored to have you ever right here right this moment and to welcome all of you to the College of Michigan household. I do know you’ll proceed to assist us serve the general public good.”

Ono, 59, is an skilled imaginative and prescient researcher whose pioneering work in experimental drugs focuses on the immune system and eye illness. His monitor report of management at universities within the U.S. and Canada consists of prioritizing sustainability efforts, sturdy advocacy for psychological well being points and an open communication type.

He additionally has centered on accessibility and affordability in greater training by service in organizations such because the Posse Basis, management of the City Well being Initiative of the Coalition of City Serving Universities and launching new packages on the universities he has served. At UBC, he led substantial efforts centered on reality and reconciliation for indigenous teams and others.

Ono is the chief of the College Local weather Change Coalition, a community that connects 23 of the world’s main analysis universities and college methods dedicated to accelerating local weather motion. Occasions Increased Schooling ranked UBC among the many prime seven universities on the planet in its “Affect Rankings” in every of the previous 4 years for taking pressing motion to fight local weather change and its impacts.

Ono additionally serves as chair of the U15 Group of Canadian Analysis Universities, a collective of research-intensive establishments much like the Affiliation of American Universities.

“The College of Michigan is acknowledged worldwide as being on the pinnacle of public greater training,” he mentioned. “It’s a singular honor to be chosen to steer such a rare establishment.

“I sit up for embracing the college group and supporting their training, scholarship, innovation and repair. And I sit up for becoming a member of Michigan’s 600,000 alumni in cheering for the Wolverines.”

Ono, who’s of Japanese heritage, is the primary Asian American to steer U-M. He was born in Vancouver and grew up in Pennsylvania and Maryland, and earned a bachelor’s diploma in organic science on the College of Chicago and a doctorate in experimental drugs from McGill College in Montreal.

He has taught at Johns Hopkins College, Harvard College and College Faculty London. Whereas on the College of Cincinnati, he additionally served as a professor of pediatrics at Cincinnati Kids’s Hospital Medical Middle.

Ono is a fellow of the American Affiliation for the Development of Science, Canadian Academy of Well being Sciences, Nationwide Academy of Inventors and Johns Hopkins Society of Students. He is also a recipient of the Reginald Wilson Range Management Award from the American Council on Schooling. Earlier this yr, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

Ono’s appointment adopted a complete search that started in February. A presidential search committee that included college students, college, workers, alumni and regents labored with govt search agency Isaacson, Miller to determine and evaluate candidates.

The committee hosted seven public listening classes earlier this yr to gather enter from members of the group about their hopes and expectations for a brand new president. A web based survey collected extra ideas from greater than 1,000 respondents.

“A number of clear and constant themes emerged in regard to what our group wished in a brand new chief,” mentioned Regent Denise Ilitch, who with Regent Sarah Hubbard co-chaired the search committee to pick the brand new president. “Somebody who might construct belief, lead with integrity and actively have interaction the total vary of Michigan’s constituencies. Somebody who had sturdy emotional intelligence and communication and listening expertise.

“It’s readily obvious to me after attending to know Dr. Ono and studying about his experiences as a college administrator, that he’s the proper particular person to steer the College of Michigan at this second in time.”

Beneath the Michigan structure, the board is chargeable for electing the college president.

“We listened. We heard you,” mentioned Hubbard, thanking members of the U-M group who shared enter through the search course of. “I’m assured that the finalist seated earlier than us right this moment is the proper alternative for the College of Michigan.”

Ono’s five-year time period as president will start Oct. 13. He succeeds Mary Sue Coleman, who has been serving on an interim foundation because the board eliminated former president Mark Schlissel on Jan. 15. She is going to proceed within the position till Ono begins. Coleman led the college as its thirteenth president from 2002 to 2014.

Ono will obtain a base wage of $975,000, topic to annual will increase on the Board of Regents’ discretion, and $350,000 in deferred compensation beginning after the primary yr. He additionally will obtain common college advantages and supplemental contributions to a retirement plan, housing within the President’s Home, an expense allowance, and use of an car and a driver, all in accordance with college insurance policies.

As president, Ono is chargeable for the final oversight of the college’s instructing and analysis packages, in addition to the libraries, museums and different supporting providers. His duties additionally embody overseeing the final welfare of the college and workers, well being and order amongst college students, and the college’s monetary stability.

The college’s most important campus in Ann Arbor consists of 19 faculties and faculties. There are additionally regional campuses in Dearborn and Flint, and a nationally ranked well being system, Michigan Medication. The college additionally boasts a world-renowned intercollegiate athletics program.

As one of many nation’s prime public universities, U-M has been a pacesetter in analysis, studying and instructing for greater than 200 years. With the very best analysis quantity of all public universities within the nation, U-M is advancing new options and information in areas starting from the COVID-19 pandemic to driverless automobile know-how, social justice and carbon neutrality.

Its alumni physique is likely one of the largest on the planet and features a U.S. president, scientists, actors, astronauts and inventors.

“In each sphere of human endeavor you will see that Michigan graduates among the many leaders and greatest,” Ono mentioned. “I sit up for connecting with alumni world wide as a result of I view them as an integral a part of the college group; a part of our household.”

Ono is married to Wendy Yip, who skilled as an immunologist at McGill and as a lawyer at Boston College. They’ve two daughters, Juliana and Sarah.