Berkeley Institutes on Higher Education
Faculty and Associates
The following faculty is among those who have participated in previous BIHE programs. In future programs additional faculty may be included as well.
Harvey Blanch (bio 1 | bio 2)
Chief Scientific and Technical Officer of the Joint Bioenergy Institute, Senior Faculty Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Professor of Chemical Engineering. His research has examined transport, kinetics and thermodynamics in enzymatic and microbial processes. He is the recipient of several scientific awards and a Founding Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering, member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the US National Academy of Engineering (2005).
George Breslauer (bio)
Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost, University of California, Berkeley. Formerly Dean of Social Sciences, and Dean of the College of Letters and Science. Professor of Political Science. He received his PhD degree from the University of Michigan.
Professor Breslauer is a specialist on Soviet politics and foreign relations. He is the author or editor of 12 books on Soviet and Russian politics and foreign relations. He is Editor of the scholarly quarterly, Post-Soviet Affairs (1992 to the present). Professionally, he served on the Board of Trustees, the National Council for Soviet and East European Research, the Committee on the Contributions of the Social and Behavioral Sciences to the Prevention of Nuclear War, National Research Council, and on the Board of Directors, American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies
Janet S. Broughton
Vice Provost for the Faculty at UC Berkeley and Professor of Philosophy. Formerly Dean of Arts and Humanities.
Professor Broughton joined the Berkeley faculty in 1979 after a three-year appointment at Harvard University. She has served as chair of the philosophy department for five years and has chaired the Berkeley Senate’s Budget Committee. She is author of Descartes’s Method of Doubt (Princeton UP, 2002) and co-editor of Blackwell’s Companion to Descartes (Blackwell, 2010), and she has written a number of articles about the great seventeenth- and eighteenth-century philosophers René Descartes and David Hume. In her current position as vice provost, she works to maintain high standards and fair processes in deciding cases for faculty appointment, promotion, and merit increases. She helps faculty, chairs, and deans to stay up to date about the University’s policies and practices, and she collaborates with the Provost and the Academic Senate on many issues, including decisions about search authorizations for hiring new faculty members. In partnership with the Associate Vice Provost for the Faculty, she has responsibilities for work-life programs, faculty equity, and data collection. Her PhD is from Princeton University.
Joseph I. Castro
Joseph Castro, Ph.D., serves as Vice Chancellor -- Student Academic Affairs at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He leads an array of departments that serve the academic needs of UCSF’s talented and diverse student body. Dr. Castro is the Chair of the UC system Council of Vice Chancellors of Student Affairs. He serves as Professor of Family and Community Medicine in the UCSF School of Medicine where he conducts research and teaches courses on policy, leadership and diversity issues. From October 2011 to April 2012, Dr. Castro also served as Interim Dean of the Graduate Division at UCSF.
For the past 22 years, Dr. Castro has served in a variety of faculty and administrative positions within the UC system at the Berkeley, Davis, Merced, and Santa Barbara campuses as well as at the Office of the President. He received a B.A. in political science and M.P.P. in public policy from UC Berkeley and Ph.D. in higher education policy and leadership from Stanford University.
Dr. Castro is the recipient of the 2010 Martin Luther King, Jr. Award at UCSF and the 2010 University of California Student Association’s Administrator of the Year Award. In June 2010, he was featured by KGO Channel 7, San Francisco in its “Profiles in Excellence” series. In 2011, he was awarded the prestigious International Cooperation Dedication Award from the Beijing Municipal Education Commission. In January of this year, the UCSF Council of Minority Organizations gave Dr. Castro a special award to recognize his extraordinary contributions to advancing diversity at UCSF. He is the grandson of farmworkers from Mexico and members of the San Carlos Apache Tribe. Dr. Castro was the first person in his family to enroll at a university.
Teresa Costantinidis
Assistant Vice Chancellor – Budget and Resource Planning, University of California, Berkeley
Barbara Gross Davis (bio)
Currently Vice President of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (United States regional accrediting agency for colleges and universities), Barbara Gross Davis received her Ph.D. from UC Berkeley and served as an administrator on campus for 30 years. As director, dean, assistant vice provost, and assistant vice chancellor, she worked to improve teaching and learning at UC Berkeley. Her areas of interest include faculty development, instructional improvement, accreditation, and the assessment and evaluation of teaching and learning. The second edition of her book, Tools for Teaching, was published by Jossey-Bass in 2009.
John Aubrey Douglass (bio)
Senior Research Fellow in public policy and higher education at the Center for Studies in Higher Education, UC Berkeley. He is the co-editor of Globalization's Muse: Universities and Higher Education Systems in a Changing World (Public Policy Press, 2009), and author of The Conditions for Admissions (Stanford Press 2007) and The California Idea and American Higher Education (Stanford University Press, 2000; published in Chinese in 2008). Among the research projects he founded and leads is the Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) Consortium - a group of major research universities developing new data sources and analysis for improving student academic and civic engagement. He is the editor of the CSHE Research and Occasional Paper Series (ROPS) and sits on the editorial board of a number of international higher education journals in Europe, China, and Russia.
Current research interests are focused on comparative international higher education, including the influence of globalization, the role of universities in economic development, science policy as a component of national and multinational economic policy, strategic issues related to developing mass higher education, and assessing student experience in major research universities.
Richard Edelstein (bio)
An Associate of the Center for Studies in Higher Education at the University of California, Berkeley where he collaborates with Professor John Douglass on a study of the Global strategies and international engagements of major research universities. He has an M.A. in Higher Education Management from Berkeley and has done research on international higher education issues in the U.S. and Europe with a focus on institutional strategies and change processes. He spent three years doing doctoral research at the European Institute for Education and Social Policy in Paris and is an expert on the Bologna process and trends in management and business education.
Richard Edelstein is the founder and director of Global Learning Networks, a consultancy in international strategic analysis, global partnership development, program design and pedagogical innovation for universities and professional schools. Global Learning Networks assists institutions with extending their international dimension and their competencies in operating on a global scale. Richard has extensive experience designing and managing international projects at universities and business schools.
Saul Geiser (bio)
SAUL GEISER is a research associate at the Center for Studies in Higher Education at the University of California, Berkeley. He received his Ph.D. in sociology from UC Berkeley and served as director of admissions research for the ten-campus UC system after Californians voted to end affirmative action in 1996. His work has focused on issues of equity and predictive validity in college admissions, with the aim of identifying admissions criteria that have less adverse impact on low-income and minority applicants while remaining valid indicators of student performance in college.
Geiser's research on achievement testing was influential in the College Board's decision to revise the SAT in the direction of a more curriculum-based test in 2006. His work has contributed to the development of a number of new admissions policies, including UC's policy on Eligibility in the Local Context, which guarantees admission to the top four percent of students from each California high school. In addition to admissions research, Geiser has directed the evaluation of UC's outreach programs to disadvantaged students and schools in California.
Paul Gray (bio)
Formerly Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost, University of California, Berkeley, Professor of Electrical Engineering and former Dean of Electrical Engineering. He received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Arizona. Prof. Gray is the author or co-author of over 150 journal articles and has published four books, the one of which is his co-authored text, Analysis and Design of Analog Integrated Circuits. He is also author or co-author of 14 patents.
Prof. Gray currently holds the Andrew S. Grove Distinguished Professorship. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering; a Fellow of the IEEE; and a recipient of several technical achievement and education awards. Professor. Gray has also been awarded honorary doctorates from the University of Bucharest in Romania and from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland. He currently serves as a Councilor of the National Academy of Engineering, and is a member of the National Research Council Governing Board, of the board of trustees of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.
Ron Gronsky (bio)
Special Faculty Assistant to the Chancellor for International Relations, University of California, Berkeley and Professor of Material Science and Engineering. His Ph.D. is from the University of California, Berkeley.
Ron Gronsky established the Atomic Resolution Microscope project and established the National Center for Electron Microscopy at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He has received numerous awards and is a member of the European Academy of Sciences (2002). His research contributions extend to many materials, including aerospace alloys, biomaterials, catalysts, magnetic materials, superconductors, semiconductors, ceramics, and polymers. As Director of the International Visitors and Exchange Office, he oversees the development of bilateral and multilateral exchange agreements that allow for graduate student and faculty exchange with international partner institutions. The International Visitors and Exchange Office also coordinates the visits of high-level international visitors and delegations to the UC Berkeley campus, including heads of state, government officials and senior academic officials.
Diane Harley (bio)
Harley is Senior Researcher at the Center for Studies in Higher Education. Her Ph.D. is from the University of California, Berkeley in Anthropology.
Diane Harley directs the Higher Education in the Digital Age (HEDA) project at the Center for Studies in Higher Education. Her research focuses on the policy implications of integrating information and communication technologies into complex academic environments and emphasizes the concurrent analysis of social, economic, and academic costs and benefits of new media in scholarship, and she is currently the principal investigator of the Open and Affordable Textbooks Project, and co-principal investigator with C. Judson King on a project investigating the Future of Scholarly Communication. Her publications and presentations span the fields of higher education policy, scholarly communication, educational technology, biological anthropology, and the evolution of human and nonhuman primate biosocial behavior.
James A. Hyatt
Mr. Hyatt has extensive experience both as a senior level executive at a number of the nation’s major research universities, including UC Berkeley, the University of Maryland, College Park and Virginia Tech, and as a principle investigator on externally funded research projects in the areas of higher education financial management, financial reporting and campus safety and security. From 2008-2010 Mr. Hyatt served as the President of World Institute for Disaster Recovery Management. He is a recipient of the Berkeley Citation for distinguished achievement and service to UC Berkeley and is included in Who’s Who in the West (27th Edition).
During his tenure as Vice Chancellor for Budget and Finance at UC Berkeley Mr. Hyatt implemented a new campus-wide financial management system and an interactive campus resource management reporting system (Cal. Profiles). While serving as Executive Vice President at Virginia Tech Mr. Hyatt was actively involved in the passage of the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Higher Education Restructuring Act that provided in enhanced operating flexibility to Virginia’s public colleges and universities.
Mr. Hyatt received both his Bachelor’s degree in English, and his Master of Business Administration degree, in accounting and operations and systems analysis from The University of Washington. He is the author of a number of books on higher education financial management and is a recognized authority on college and university budgeting, financial management and cost accounting.
Nicholas Jewell (bio)
Former Vice Provost for Academic Personnel, University of California, Office of the President and Vice Provost, University of California, Berkeley; Professor of Biostatistics, School of Public Health and Department of Statistics. His Ph.D. in mathematics is from the University of Edinburgh. As Vice Provost, he oversaw personnel policy development and implementation for all University faculty. He is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association, the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and has received numerous awards. Among current research Interests are statistical methods related to infectious diseases, including AIDS, and biostatistical techniques in epidemiological data analysis.
C. Judson King (Co-organizer) (bio)
Director, Center for Studies in Higher Education, Provost and Senior Vice President – Academic Affairs, Emeritus, University of California system. Served as Provost 1995- 2004. His Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Techology, Professor Emeritus, Chemical Engineering. Professor King has also been Provost, Professional Schools and Colleges and Dean of the College of Chemistry He has researched and published extensively, including authoring a textbook, “Separation Processes”. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and has received various awards from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the American Society for Engineering Education, the American Chemical Society, the Council for Chemical Research and the Yale Science and Engineering Association Director, Center for Studies in Higher Education and Professor of Chemical Engineering Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley. He served as Chair of the California Council on Science and Technology.
Patricia A. Pelfrey (bio)
Senior Research Associate, Center for Studies in Higher Education and Assistant to the President Emeritus, University of California.
Author of A Brief History of the University of California (University of California Press, 2004) and editor of The Pursuit of Knowledge: Speeches and Papers of Richard C. Atkinson (University of California Press, 2007). Her most recent book is Entrepreneurial President: Richard Atkinson and the University of California, 1995-2003 (University of California Press, 2012), an analysis of the principal issues facing the University during this seminal period.
Current research interests include UC’s organization as a multicampus system; the role of the president in UC and in other public research universities; and early nineteenth-century ideas about education, learning, and the nature of knowledge.
Karl S. Pister (bio
Chancellor Emeritus, University of California, Santa Cruz; former Vice President, Education Outreach, University of California; Dean and Professor of Civil Engineering, Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley.
Pister is the Chancellor Emeritus of the University of California, Santa Cruz, former Vice President for Educational Outreach of the University of California, and chair of the governing board of the California Council on Science and Technology. Prior to retirement he completed five decades of service to higher education, He was also Dean of the College of Engineering.
He received numerous national awards including the Berkeley Medal, the Presidential Medal of the University of California and the Presidential Award of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Pister is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is also a Fellow of the American Academy of Mechanics, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and an Honorary Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning, and the Board of Trustees of the American University of Armenia. He also served as founding chairman of the Board on Engineering Education of the National Research Council.
Kris Pister (bio)
Professor of Electrical Engineering and holds PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from University of California, Berkeley. He founded Dust Networks, a company to commercialize his research vision of ubiquitous wireless sensor networks.
Robert Price (bio)
Associate Vice Chancellor for Research and Professor of Political Science with a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.
Professor Price’s research and teaching interests include the politics of contemporary South Africa. He is author of several books and a variety of journal articles and book chapters dealing with the new African state, U.S. foreign policy towards Africa, and political change in South Africa. Among latter is “Race and Reconciliation in the New South Africa,” Politics and Society, V. 25, No. 2.
Sheldon Rothblatt (bio)
Professor Emeritus of History; former Director, Center for Studies in Higher Education, University of California, Berkeley. He holds a PhD from UC Berkeley.
He writes on the comparative history of universities in relation to culture, the professions, the state and economy. A recent book is Education's Abiding Moral Dilemma: Merit and Worth in the Cross-Atlantic Democracies, 1800-2006. He is a renowned scholar of British and European history, and his research centers on the history of universities in relation to society and culture, the history of campus planning and architecture, urban culture, intellectuals, scientists and professions and the history of liberal learning in the US, Britain and Continental Europe. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society of Britain, a Permanent Fellow of the Society for Research in Higher Education (UK), a Member of the National Academy of Education and a Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
AnnaLee Saxenian (bio)
Dean and Professor, School of Information; Professor of City and Regional Planning, University of California, Berkeley. She holds a Ph.D. from MIT in political science. Her research interests focus on regional economics and the conditions under which people, ideas, and geographies combine and connect into hubs of economic activity.Her most recent book, The New Argonauts: Regional Advantage in the Global Economy (Harvard University Press, 2006), explores how the "brain circulation" by immigrant engineers from Silicon Valley has transferred technology entrepreneurship to emerging regions in China, India, Taiwan, and Israel.
She is also author of Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128, Silicon Valley’s New Immigrant Entrepreneurs, Local and Global Networks of Immigrant Professionals in Silicon.
Neil J. Smelser
Neil Smelser is a University Professor Emeritus of Sociology and former director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. His research has focused on what he calls the "macroscopic social structural level" of collective behavior, including economic sociology, social change, and the sociology of education.
Smelser is a former president of the American Sociological Association, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences. He joined the UC Berkeley faculty in 1958 and has authored fifteen books, including The Theory of Collective Behavior and 14 other books. including Reflections on the University of California.
Ellen Switkes (Co-organizer) (bio)
Senior Associate, Center for Studies in Higher Education, University of California, Berkeley and Assistant Vice President Emeritus, Academic Advancement, University of California. Ph.D. in chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Ellen Switkes is Senior Associate and Co-Organizer of CSHE’s Berkeley Institute on Higher Education (BIHE), an institute targeted for higher education leaders from nations outside of the United States, focused on the essential characteristics of major research universities in the United States, with particular emphasis on the University of California as a case study, and linking Institute programs with CSHE based policy research. As Assistant Vice President of Academic Advancement at University Office of the President she oversaw personnel policy development and implementation for all University faculty. Switkes was a faculty member in chemistry at UC Santa Cruz and has recently served as Project Coordinator of Global Health Institute at UCSF.
John Wilton
John Wilton is UC Berkeley's Vice Chancellor for Administration & Finance and is responsible for managing the University's annual operating budget of more than $1.8 billion, the continuing design and implementation of Operational Excellence, stabilization of the campus budget, and establishment of a sustainable financial model for the future. In addition, the divisions he oversees comprise nearly 2400 employees and campus operations that include financial and human resources, auxiliary and business services, athletics, and environment, health and public safety.
Vice Chancellor Wilton previously was a managing director and the director of international research for Farallon Capital Management LLC, a global, multi-strategy, U.S.-based investment management firm. And was also advisor on developments in the global economy to Hellman and Friedman LLC, a private investment company. Prior to his employment at Farallon, he worked for the World Bank for 24 years in positions including chief financial officer, vice president for strategy, finance and risk management, and senior economist. Wilton received his bachelor's and master's degrees in economics from Sussex University.
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Last modified: 14 December 2011 | e-mail