On July 1, 2006, Robert J. Zimmer became the 13th President of the University of Chicago.
Prior to his appointment as President, Zimmer was a University of Chicago faculty member and administrator for more than two decades specializing in the mathematical fields of geometry, particularly ergodic theory, Lie groups, and differential geometry. As a University of Chicago administrator, Zimmer served as chairman of the Department of Mathematics, deputy provost, and vice president for research and for Argonne National Laboratory. He also served as provost at Brown University from 2002-2006, returning to Chicago in 2006 to become president of the University.
As president, Zimmer serves as chair of the Board of Governors of Argonne National Laboratory; chair of the Board of Directors of Fermi Research Alliance LLC, the operator of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory; and chair of the Board of Trustees of the Marine Biological Laboratory. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was a member of the National Science Board, the governing body of the National Science Foundation, from 2011 to 2016 and also served on the President’s Committee on the National Medal of Science from 2008 to 2010.
Zimmer earned his AB, summa cum laude, from Brandeis University in 1968 and a PhD in mathematics from Harvard University in 1975, and joined the Chicago faculty as an L.E. Dickson Instructor of Mathematics in 1977. He was also on the faculty of the US Naval Academy from 1975 to 1977 and has held visiting positions at Harvard University and at institutions in Israel, France, Australia, Switzerland, and Italy.