Williams College President, 2010-2017
Adam Frederick Falk became Professor of Physics and the 17th President of Williams College on April 1, 2010. He left Williams to become president of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation at the end of December 2017.
At Williams, Falk focused on advancing the college’s mission of providing the finest possible liberal arts education by working with faculty to strengthen the curriculum, further enrich student residential life, and maximize the educational value derived from the growing diversity of the college’s students, faculty, and staff.
During his tenure, Falk oversaw a wide-ranging reorganization of the college administration and led the successful effort to raise funds needed to resume the $82 million Sawyer Library Project, which is now helping transform Williams teaching and learning in the humanities and social sciences.
Falk joined the college from the Johns Hopkins University, where he served as the James B. Knapp Dean of the Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, and earlier as its Dean of the Faculty.
A high-energy physicist and award-winning teacher whose research focused on elementary particle physics and quantum field theory, Falk is a fellow of the American Physical Society and a winner of prestigious awards from the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, the Research Corporation, and the Sloan Foundation.
Falk graduated with highest distinction as a Morehead-Cain Scholar from the University of North Carolina in 1987, and he earned his Ph.D. in 1991 from Harvard University, where he received numerous awards for excellence in undergraduate teaching. He held postdoctoral appointments at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and the University of California, San Diego, before joining the faculty at Johns Hopkins in 1994.
(1965- )
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