Alan Garber Now Holds The Title As President Of Harvard University

Alan M. Garber, Harvard’s interim president since January and previously its longest-serving provost, will serve as president through the 2026-27 academic year. This was announced after a meeting of Harvard’s governing boards. A full-scale search for his successor will begin in the late spring or summer of 2026.

“Alan has done an outstanding job leading Harvard through extraordinary challenges since taking on his interim presidential duties seven months ago,” Penny Pritzker, senior fellow of the Harvard Corporation, wrote in a message to the community.

“We have asked him to hold the title of President, not just Interim President, both to recognize his distinguished service to the University and to underscore our belief that this is a time not merely for steady stewardship but for active, engaged leadership.

“Alan has led with a deep concern for all members of the Harvard community, a strong devotion to enduring university ideals, and a paramount commitment to academic excellence,” Pritzker added.

According to the Academia of Harvard, they are very fortunate to benefit from his intellectual acumen and breadth of interests, his integrity and fair-mindedness, his equanimity and empathy, his decades-long devotion to the university, his extensive knowledge of its people and parts, and his ardent belief in the power of higher education and research, and their potential to improve the lives of people and communities near and far.

Alan Garber’s time in Mass Hall has demonstrated his clear-eyed determination both to help the university chart a course through troubled waters and to affirm the primacy of the teaching, learning, and research at Harvard’s heart.

A native of Rock Island, Illinois, Garber served as Harvard provost from 2011 until January of this year, when he was named interim president. An economist, physician, and expert on health policy, he holds faculty appointments in medicine, economics, government, and public health.

After graduating summa cum laude from Harvard College in three years, he went on to receive a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard and an M.D. from Stanford, where he served on the faculty for 25 years and was founding director of two academic centers.

In his own message to the Harvard community, Garber reflected on the values that underpin the University’s mission.

“From the moment I arrived at Harvard as an undergraduate, I have been inspired by the people who make this institution what it is,” he wrote. “We believe in the value of knowledge, the power of teaching and research, and the ways that what we do here can benefit society. Those commitments matter today more than ever.

“Our work now is to focus on them with renewed vigor, rededicating ourselves to academic excellence. That excellence is made possible by the free exchange of ideas, open inquiry, creativity, empathy, and constructive dialogue among people with diverse backgrounds and views,” he added.

“This is a challenging time, one of strong passions and strained bonds among us. But I know that we are capable of finding our way forward together because we share a devotion to learning and because we recognize our pluralism as a source of our strength.”

Alan added that, he was “excited by the prospect of what they can achieve in these next years, and would do his “utmost to ensure that they continue to advance knowledge and drive discovery even as they work to mend the fabric of the community.

“From the moment I arrived at Harvard as an undergraduate, I have been inspired by the people who make this institution what it is.”

In her message, Pritzker noted that the decision to extend Garber’s presidential service through 2026-27 benefited from a series of consultations with deans, faculty, alumni leaders, and others, leading to the judgment that Harvard would be well served by Garber’s leadership for three more years, as the University continues to navigate challenging times, before the launch of a full-scale presidential search in 2026.

Alan had been praised by an array of faculty and alumni leaders from the various schools — of his qualities and how his leadership meets the current moment.

Garber served as provost alongside three Harvard presidents — Drew Faust, Larry Bacow, and Claudine Gay — with responsibility for overseeing academic policies and activities across the Schools and fostering collaboration.

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When she appointed Garber in 2011, Faust noted his “extraordinary breadth of experience in research across disciplines” and highlighted his “incisive intellect” and “loyalty and commitment to Harvard.”

As the University’s chief academic officer, he worked closely with faculty and deans throughout Harvard’s Schools as well as its academic centers and affiliates, aiming to advance academic excellence, innovation, and integration across the institution.

As provost, Garber played several significant roles in shaping a range of major cross-disciplinary collaborations. He is an exceptional academic leader of intellectual breadth and depth who has demonstrated a tireless commitment to the pursuit of Veritas and the teaching and research mission of Harvard University.

Garber also launched the Provost’s Academic Leadership Forum in 2012 as a cross-School program and resource for emerging faculty leaders from across the Schools. Over 120 faculty have participated in the program since its inception, some of whom have gone on to become deans or assume other significant leadership roles.

He initiated the Harvard Dialogues series at the start of the spring term to encourage constructive dialogues on difficult topics. In addition, together with Interim Provost John Manning, he launched a faculty working group on open inquiry and constructive dialogue, chaired by Professors Eric Beerbohm and Tomiko Brown-Nagin, as well as a faculty working group on institutional voice, chaired by Professors Noah Feldman and Alison Simmons.

Credit: Havard University