Sally Mason became the 20th president of The University of Iowa on August 1, 2007. She holds a full professorship with tenure in the Department of Biology in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
In her first two years at the UI, President Mason began a sustainable university initiative, which makes sustainability a central priority of all aspects of the University enterprise—its operations, its academic mission, and its greater responsibilities to society. An unexpected priority for President Mason was the historic flooding of the UI campus and the greater community in 2008, and her leadership helped bring the campus community together to preserve as much of the University’s resources as possible and rebuild essential facilities in time to open the campus for a full complement of fall semester courses.
The daughter of an immigrant family and the first child to attend college, President Mason received her BA in zoology from The University of Kentucky in 1972, her MS from Purdue University in 1974, and her PhD in cellular, molecular, and developmental biology from The University of Arizona in 1978. She subsequently spent two years at Indiana University in Bloomington doing postdoctoral research before joining The University of Kansas in 1981. A strong advocate of undergraduate education, she received awards for outstanding undergraduate advising and teaching, and she was awarded a prestigious Kemper Teaching Fellowship. During her 21 years at Kansas, President Mason served as a full professor in the Department of Molecular Biosciences, Acting Chair of the Department of Physiology and Cell Biology, and Associate Dean in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. In 1995, she was appointed Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the largest academic unit on the University of Kansas campus.
President Mason served as Provost of Purdue University from 2001-2007, where she was responsible for planning, managing, and reviewing all academic programs at Purdue’s West Lafayette campus and four affiliated branch campuses throughout Indiana.
President Mason is the author of many scientific papers and has obtained a number of research grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Wesley Research Foundation, and the Lilly Endowment. Her research interests have focused on the developmental biology, genetics, and biochemistry of pigment cells and pigments in the skin of vertebrates. She has served as president of both the PanAmerican Society for Pigment Cell Research and the Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences, and she has served as Chair of the Advisory Committee to the National Science Foundation Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR) and the Executive Committee of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC), now the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU), Chief Academic Officers Group.
She also served on the Executive Committee of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) from 2003-2007 and was appointed by the President of the United States to the National Medal of Science Selection Committee for two terms from 2006-2011. In 2008-2009, President Mason co-chaired the Task Force on National Energy Policy and Midwestern Competitiveness of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Its report, Embracing the Future: The Midwest and a New National Energy Policy, was published in June 2009 and had an immediate impact on the national debate over how climate change legislation will impact Midwestern economic competitiveness.
