Kathleen Hagerty named Northwestern provost

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EVANSTON, Ill. --- Kathleen Hagerty has been named Northwestern’s provost, President Morton Schapiro announced today. Her appointment will become effective Sept. 1.

Hagerty, who had been serving as interim provost since April 1, becomes the first woman provost since the University was founded in 1851.

“This is a pivotal moment in Northwestern’s history and it is clear to me that Kathleen is the right person to lead our academic enterprise and build further on our 169 years of academic excellence,” Schapiro said. “Having worked closely with Kathleen amid some of the most challenging conditions the University has ever faced, I am continuously impressed by her decisiveness, her dedication to our institution and her compassion for our community.”

Hagerty previously served as associate provost for faculty and as interim dean of the Kellogg School of Management. She started her Northwestern career at Kellogg more than three decades ago and holds the First Chicago Professorship in Finance. Schapiro praised Hagerty’s leadership and said she is a highly respected scholar and teacher.

“She has been instrumental in helping guide Northwestern through the COVID-19 pandemic, providing strong leadership when we have needed it most,” Schapiro said. 

Throughout her career, Hagerty has been able to attract and retain top faculty in an increasingly competitive market for academic talent. As provost, she is the University’s chief academic officer and an ex officio member of the faculty of each school.

“I am pleased and excited to have the opportunity to work with the Northwestern community in continuing to move the University forward during these challenging times,” Hagerty said.  “The current situation also provides us with opportunities, and I look forward to working with the deans, faculty, staff and students at Northwestern to continue to enhance our impact on local, national, and international issues.

“My goal, and the goal of all of us at Northwestern, is to make our University an even greater institution, accelerating our impact on society through path-breaking research and an innovative and transformational academic experience.”

At Kellogg, she held numerous leadership positions, including serving two terms as senior associate dean of faculty and research, two terms as chair of the finance department and two years as faculty director of Kellogg’s Ph.D. programs. She also is responsible for the development of several successful academic programs that foster partnerships across the University. 

Her work as a scholar has studied the micro-structure of securities markets, disclosure regulation, insider trading regulation and the effectiveness of self-regulatory organizations. Her research has appeared in top journals, including The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Political Economy and The Journal of Finance.

Hagerty succeeds Jonathan Holloway, who left Northwestern in April to become president of Rutgers University.

She received a Bradley Foundation Research Fellowship and received the D.P. Jacobs Prize for the Most Significant Paper in the Journal of Financial Intermediation. She has also been a member of the editorial board of the Review of Financial Studies and the Journal of Financial Markets.

She received a B.A. in mathematics, M.S. in operations Research and MBA from the University of California, Berkeley, and her Ph.D. in Economics from Stanford University.

Hagerty is married to William Rogerson, the Charles E. and Emma H. Morrison Professor of Economics at Northwestern University.