Nathan Urban named provost of Lehigh University

Nathan Urban, vice provost for graduate studies and strategic initiatives, has been appointed provost of Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa., starting this summer.

Urban joined Pitt in 2015 as vice provost for special projects, moving to his current role in 2017, which includes oversight of all graduate and professional academic programs. He established the graduate and professional student lounge in the William Pitt Union; expanded the graduate study and dissertation writing rooms in Hillman Library; and created the annual graduate studies retreat, which has increased awareness of mental health resources, placed ombudspersons in schools and improved graduate student mentoring.

Urban is also professor and associate chair of the Department of Neurobiology, associate director of the University of Pittsburgh Brain Institute and co-director of the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition. His work has received grants from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Simons Foundation, the Hillman Foundation and the DSF Charitable Foundation.

Before joining Pitt, his alma mater, Urban was Carnegie Mellon University’s interim provost (2014-2015), a faculty member in life sciences and head of the Department of Biological Sciences (2010-2014) there, having started at CMU in 2002, following a postdoctoral fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg, Germany.

“Many good things have grown — and will continue to grow — because of Nathan’s many contributions, not only at Pitt but more broadly in the Pittsburgh community,” Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor Ann E. Cudd said in a statement.

Details of the search for Urban’s successor will be announced in the coming weeks. 

— Marty Levine