Elizabeth Garrett

For the English physician, see Elizabeth Garrett Anderson.

Elizabeth Garrett
President of Cornell University
Incumbent
Assumed office July 1, 2015
Preceded by	David J. Skorton
Provost of the University of Southern California
In office 2010–2015
Personal details
Born	1963 (age 61–62)
Spouse(s)	Andrei Marmor
Alma mater	University of Oklahoma University of Virginia School of Law

Helen Elizabeth Garrett, commonly known as Elizabeth Garrett, born c. 1963, is an American professor of law and an academic administrator. In 2010, she became Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at the University of Southern California. On July 1, 2015, she became the 13th president of Cornell University.

Education and legal career

Garrett earned her Bachelor of Arts in history from the University of Oklahoma in 1985, and her law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1988.

After law school, Garrett clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and for Judge Stephen F. Williams on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Garrett was also Legislative Director and Tax and Budget Counsel to Senator David L. Boren of Oklahoma.

Academia

Garrett was a professor of law at the University of Chicago from 1995 to 1999, also holding the post of deputy dean for academic affairs. In addition she was a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, the California Institute of Technology, the University of Virginia Law School, Central European University in Budapest, and the Interdisciplinary Center Law School in Israel.

Career at USC

File:Groundbreaking of Wallis Annenberg Hall.jpg

Elizabeth Garrett (pictured in middle) participating in the groundbreaking of Wallis Annenberg Hall at USC on November 8, 2012.

Garrett began her tenure at the University of Southern California in 2003. Her research included legislative process, direct democracy, the federal budget process, democratic institutions, statutory interpretation, administrative law and tax policy. During this time, she co-authored Cases and Materials on Legislation: Statutes and the Creation of Public Policy and co-edited Statutory Interpretation Stories and Fiscal Challenges: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Budget Policy.

In 2010, Garrett was appointed provost and senior vice president for academic affairs. She concurrently worked as a professor in the USC Gould School of Law, and she also sat on the governing board of USC hospitals.

President of Cornell University

On September 30, 2014, Cornell University's Board of Trustees unanimously elected Garrett as the 13th president of Cornell University. Incumbent president of Cornell University David J. Skorton had earlier announced he would be leaving Cornell on June 30, 2015, to become the next secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.

She was selected after a six month search in which some two hundred candidates were considered. Garrett is the first woman to lead the university. Her inauguration ceremony was held on September 18, 2015 on the Arts Quad of Cornell University.

Special appointments

In 2005, U.S. President George W. Bush appointed Garrett to serve on the nine-member bipartisan President's Advisory Panel for Federal Tax Reform. Its report was issued later in that same year.

On March 30, 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama nominated Garrett to be Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Tax Policy in the Department of Treasury. Garrett withdrew her nomination on May 29, 2009, citing "aspects of my personal family situation."

From 2009-2014 she served as one of five commissioners on the California Fair Political Practices Commission, the state’s independent political oversight agency. She previously served as director of the USC-Caltech Center for the Study of Law and Politics. Garrett has also served on the boards of the Initiative & Referendum Institute at USC and on the Internet2 Board of Directors.

External links

• USC Office of the Provost
• Elizabeth Garrett's faculty page at USC with full C.V.