These 19 people have a seat at the table to help pick Penn’s next president

Penn President Larry Jameson will step down at the end of this academic year. A 19-person committee — drawing members from across Penn’s schools and governance bodies — will help choose his successor and, in doing so, chart the University’s future.

The Consultative Committee will gather community input to define the priorities and qualifications that should steer the presidential search. Its members have spent anywhere between three years to several decades at Penn.

Two of them — 1979 College graduate Julie Beren Platt and Marc McMorris, a 1990 College graduate and 1994 Wharton School graduate — also served on the last iteration of the committee, which helped select former Penn President Liz Magill.

Here’s what to know about the trustees, administrators, faculty, and student leaders shaping the search for Penn’s 11th president.

Kathleen Brown

Kathleen Brown is the David Boies Professor of History and a tri-chair of the Faculty Senate. She served as chair for the 2025-26 academic year, during which the body took on efforts to improve engagement, including through publishing a one-pager outlining responsibilities within the University’s system of shared governance.

Brown — whose  work focuses on gender and race in early America — began her time at Penn in 1995, when she served as a visiting professor. 

Musab Chummun

College senior Musab Chummun serves as the 54th president of the Undergraduate Assembly. He is pursuing a major in philosophy, politics, and economics and a minor in legal studies and history.

In his time at the UA, Chummun focused on initiatives to increase club sports funding, disclose Penn’s endowment, protect diversity, equity, and inclusion at University Council, and pass measures to protect students from federal immigration enforcement.

Jonathan Epstein

Jonathan Epstein is the dean of the Perelman School of Medicine and executive vice president of the University of Pennsylvania Health System. 

Epstein joined Penn in 1996. From 2006 to 2015, he served as chair of the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology and scientific director of the Penn Cardiovascular Institute. 

Eric Feldman

University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School professor Eric Feldman — who also serves as the Heimbold Chair in International Law and Deputy Dean for International Programs — was the Faculty Senate chair during the 2024-25 academic year.

Feldman began his term as Faculty Senate chair amid a tumultuous time at Penn, following a semester of protests on campus. He currently serves as senior advisor to the provost on open expression. 

Cait Lamberton

Vice Dean and Director of the Wharton Undergraduate Division Cait Lamberton joined Wharton in 2019 as the Alberto I. Duran President’s Distinguished Professor of Marketing. Lamberton teaches courses spanning the undergraduate, MBA, Ph.D., and executive levels and began her term as vice dean in July 2025.

Lamberton — whose research focuses on the impact of dignity and respect in customer experiences — is also the co-founder of the Munich-based Center for Empirical Philosophy and Behavioral Insights.

Yphtach Lelkes

Yphtach Lelkes is the Michael X. Delli Carpini Professor of Communication, with research focusing on the intersection of public opinion, political psychology, and political communication.

Lelkes serves as the co-director of the Polarization Research Lab, which provides open data and research on American views of democracy and tracking political violence. He also co-directs the Center for Information Networks and Democracy, which examines the impacts of information networks on democracy.

Ryan Limaye

1993 M&T graduate Ryan Limaye is a member of the University Board of Trustees and is on the Board of Advisors of the School of Engineering and Applied Science. He currently serves as a managing director and head of global technology investment banking at Goldman Sachs. 

Judith Long

Judith Long is the Sol Katz Professor of Medicine, a senior fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, and chief of general internal medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine. 

Long’s research focuses on the social determinants of health and reducing health disparities in chronic disease treatment. At Penn, she is involved with training in Health Services and Policy Researchers. 

Catherine O’Hern Lyons

1986 College graduate Catherine O’Hern Lyons is a current member of the Board of Trustees and an advisor for the Board of Advisors of the School of Dental Medicine. Prior to her retirement, Lyons served as a managing director in the Fixed Income Trading division at Merrill Lynch.

During her time at Penn, Lyons competed in track and field, setting the women’s outdoor 1,500-meter record in 1985 — a record that stood until 2006.

Marc McMorris

1990 College and 1994 Wharton School graduate Marc McMorris is the vice chair of the Board of Trustees and chair of the body’s Investment Board. He has worked in private equity and growth investing, including spending time as a managing director at General Atlantic and Carrick Capital Partners.

McMorris was first elected to the Board of Trustees in 2006 and became a charter trustee in 2016. He is also a member of the James Brister Society, which supports Penn’s efforts to recruit and retain students and faculty of color.

In 2000, McMorris established the Joan Qualls McMorris Scholarship in honor of his mother. 

Colleen O’Neill

Colleen O’Neill became Penn’s vice president of finance and treasurer in April. In the role, she oversees major University financial operations, including finance and treasury and Student Registration and Financial Services. 

O’Neill previously served as Wharton’s chief operating and financial officer beginning in July 2023 — during her tenure, the school recorded its largest operating margin in its history.

O’Neill holds four Penn degrees: a 1998 bachelor’s degree from the College, a 1999 master’s degree from the Graduate School of Education, a 2016 master’s degree from the Fels Institute of Government, and a 2018 MBA from Wharton. 

Dhananjay Pai

1983 Wharton graduate Dhananjay Pai is a University trustee and chair of the Penn Medicine Board.

Pai is president and chief operating officer of P. Schoenfeld Asset Management, a New York-based alternative asset manager. Pai — who has also served as an overseer of the School of Arts and Sciences and as a member of the advisory board of Penn’s Center for the Advanced Study of India — previously co-chaired Penn’s Parents Leadership Council with his wife, Heena Pai.

Ramanan Raghavendran

Ramanan Raghavendran serves as chair of Board of Trustees and the chair of the presidential search Consultative Committee. A 1989 graduate of both the Engineering School and Wharton, he became a University trustee in 2014 and was elected to chair in January 2024. 

Before entering his current role, Raghavendran led the Trustee Committee on Local, National, and Global Engagement and chaired the School of Arts and Sciences Board of Advisors. 

Julie Beren Platt

Julie Beren Platt, a 1979 College graduate, is a University trustee emerita, and chair of the Penn Live Arts Board of Advisors. She joined the Board of Trustees in 2006, went on to serve as vice chair, and became interim chair after Scott Bok resigned in December 2023. 

Platt and her husband, Marc Platt, have funded scholarships, professorships, Jewish studies initiatives, and performing arts facilities at Penn. Their most recent gift is the Platt Student Performing Arts Center, which is scheduled to open in 2027.

Theodore Schlein

1986 College graduate Theodore Schlein is a University trustee and a venture capitalist whose career has focused heavily on cybersecurity and enterprise technology. A 2021 gift from Schlein established the Schlein Center for Cybersecurity — which supports interdisciplinary research and education involving technology, privacy, policy, and law.

Whitney Soule

Whitney Soule has served as Penn’s vice provost and dean of admissions since July 2021. She is the first woman to lead Penn Admissions and has worked in higher-education admissions for over three decades. At Penn, Soule helped develop “Applying to College 101,” a free online course produced with Heights Philadelphia to guide students and families through the admissions process. 

Mark Trodden

Mark Trodden became dean of Penn’s School of Arts and Sciences in June 2025. Trodden — who has been a member of Penn’s faculty since 2009 — chaired the Department of Physics and Astronomy for eight years and served as associate dean for the natural sciences for two years.

Duncan Watts

Duncan Watts is the Stevens University Professor and Penn’s 23rd Penn Integrates Knowledge University Professor. His primary appointment is at the Annenberg School for Communication, but he also holds appointments in the Engineering School, Wharton, and the School of Arts and Sciences. He directs Penn’s Computational Social Science Lab.

Before joining Penn, Watts worked at Microsoft Research and Yahoo Research and taught sociology at Columbia University. 

Adam Ziada

Adam Ziada, a doctoral candidate in the Medical School, is president of the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly. As GAPSA president, he represents Penn’s graduate and professional students and oversees the organization’s executive leadership and advocacy priorities. He is pursuing a doctorate in the Cell and Molecular Biology Graduate Group’s Gene Therapy and Vaccines program. 

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