Announcing UT’s Executive Vice President and Provost
Dear UT Community,
I am thrilled to announce that Professor Rachel Davis Mersey, who holds an appointment as the Everett D. Collier Centennial Chair in the School of Journalism and Media and has served as UT’s Interim Provost since the beginning of this academic year, will assume the permanent position of Executive Vice President and Provost at The University of Texas at Austin, effective immediately.
From the day she started as Interim Provost, Rachel has proved to be a strategic, decisive and visionary leader who embraces challenges and drives academic excellence. During the past semester, as I consulted with faculty, students, staff and other members of the community, it became apparent that she is the right person for the job. Rachel’s continued leadership is in the best interests of our University and its future, and I could not be more pleased to have her serve as our chief academic officer and a key member of our leadership team.
Prior to her appointment as Interim Provost, Rachel served as Dean of the Moody College of Communication. As Dean, she focused on experiential learning through programs such as Bevo Video Productions and collaborations with Texas Athletics; partnerships across campus and with industry, particularly in Austin, Los Angeles and New York; and driving high-impact research and creative activities across disciplines.
Before joining UT, Rachel was a professor and associate dean for research in the Medill School of Journalism, Media and Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University. After joining UT, she took a leave to serve as the Director of Global Research Partnerships at Meta, the parent company of Facebook. In that role, she designed, hired and ran a multinational team that managed and executed a company-level initiative to increase data transparency while ensuring consumer privacy. She also delivered the first-of-its-kind data-sharing program in support of the U.S. 2020 Facebook and Instagram Election Study.
Rachel holds a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, an M.S. from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, and a B.A. with honors from Wake Forest University in communication and studio art.
We share the vision to make UT the world’s highest-impact public research university. To support us in this effort, Rachel will continue the outstanding work that she’s done as Interim Provost — tirelessly recruiting exceptionally talented students, faculty and staff; harnessing and cultivating that talent so we can elevate academic programs across campus; supporting our colleges and schools as they collaborate and strive for even greater excellence; and growing our research enterprise to produce more discoveries that will change the world.
Please join me in congratulating Rachel on her appointment as Executive Vice President and Provost and thanking her for taking on this critically important role. I look forward to her continued leadership as we advance our teaching and research missions.
Sincerely yours,
Jay Hartzell
President