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Robert J. Jones, the next president of the University of Washington. (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Photo)
The University of Washington, one of the nation’s top research universities and an academic linchpin of the Seattle region’s tech industry, announced today that Robert J. Jones will become its 34th president, succeeding Ana Mari Cauce.
Jones is currently completing a nine-year tenure as chancellor of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He will join the UW in August. An agronomist and crop physiologist, his career as a university leader includes initiatives in engineering, science, technology and medicine.
The UW is the state’s largest university and home to programs including the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering and Foster School of Business, which produce engineers and entrepreneurs that stoke the Seattle-area’s business and tech economy. The UW’s $10.4 billion annual budget supports a student body of more than 60,700 undergraduate and graduate students at its three campuses, as well as extensive research programs.
Jones’ past experience includes serving as president of the University at Albany. He is currently chair of the board of directors for the Association of American Universities (AAU), an organization focused on research and academia. He also chairs the Big Ten’s Council of Presidents and Chancellors.
Under his leadership, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign raised $2.7 billion from donors in the university’s largest-ever philanthropic campaign. He also assisted in the creation of the Carle Illinois College of Medicine, which purports to be the first engineering-based medical school in the world.
Jones helped to lead a partnership with the University of Chicago to bolster quantum science research in Illinois; a human biology collaboration with the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Chicago; and an initiative to improve technology transfer at his institution.
Jones’ academic background is in agriculture, and he is recognized as an international authority on crop physiology.
His “inspiring and barrier-breaking personal journey, highly regarded scholarship and decades of transformative leadership convinced us that Chancellor Jones is the ideal person to build upon President Ana Mari Cauce’s legacy,” said Blaine Tamaki, chair of the UW’s board of regents, in a statement.
Jones will be the first African American president at the 164-year-old institution. He joins on a five-year contract. His wife, Dr. Lynn Hassan Jones, is muscular skeletal diagnostic radiologist.
Cauce holds forth in one of her purple velvet chairs in a December 2019 interview. (GeekWire Photo / Lisa Stiffler)
“Having known and worked with [Jones] within AAU and the Big Ten Conference, I know he will bring a deep and demonstrated commitment to scholarship, innovation, research and especially, access to excellence for students regardless of their means or background,” Cauce said.
Cauce will retire from her role after serving as president for a decade. She joined the UW in 1986 as a professor of psychology, moving up the leadership ladder and holding the title of chair of her department; dean of the College of Arts and Sciences; and then UW provost and executive vice president.
Her yearly salary in 2023 was close to $1 million.
Cauce broke barriers as the first female, the first Latina and the first openly gay person to be president of the UW. Under her leadership, the UW navigated the COVID-19 pandemic and shutdowns; its sports program defected from the Pac-12 to the Big Ten; and the institution celebrated two Nobel Prize wins — protein design expert David Baker in October 2024 and physicist David Thouless in 2016.
Cause will help with the leadership transition and plans to return to her faculty position as a professor of psychology and American ethnic studies.
A firm called SP&A Executive Search was hired to help recruit the UW’s new president. The company began with a list of more than 500 candidates, creating a pool of 70 applicants. The likely contenders were interviewed remotely and whittled down to 25, and then 13 candidates. The final six were questioned in person, narrowing to two options.
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