Phyllis Wise

Phyllis M. Wise became Provost and Vice President at the University of Washington, on August 1, 2005. As of September 16, 2007, her new title is Provost and Executive Vice President. As the University’s chief academic and budgetary officer, the Provost and EVP provides leadership in educational and curriculum development, formulation and allocation of budget and space, long-range strategic planning, and management of the University’s research programs. She serves as deputy to the President and provides advice and assistance to him and to the Deans and the faculty in these matters. Since her arrival, Wise has been reorganizing the Provost’s Office to make it more responsive and transparent to the current challenges in academia. During her first year she and her team focused their attention on the University’s vision, organization, and the student experience. She appointed a committee to examine whether the current organization of colleges and schools best serves the learning experiences of all students—undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral—and how the institution could more effectively support interdisciplinary programs. This analysis complements the work of a committee on improving the undergraduate experience, appointed in her first quarter at the UW. Wise, who is a professor of Physiology and Biophysics, Biology, and Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Washington, previously served as dean of the College of Biological Sciences at the University of California at Davis, from 2002 to 2005. Prior to that, she was professor and chair of the Department of Physiology at the University of Kentucky in Lexington from 1993 to 2002. Wise was a faculty member at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, from 1976 to 1993, promoting through the ranks to full professor of physiology in 1987. She holds a bachelor's degree (1967) from Swarthmore College in biology and a doctorate (1972) degree in zoology from the University of Michigan. In 2008 she received an honorary doctorate from Swarthmore College and was elected to the National Academy's Institute of Medicine. She was also selected by the Puget Sound Business Journal as one of its 2008 Women of Influence. Provost and Executive Vice President Wise continues an active research program in issues concerning women’s health and gender-based biology. She has been particularly interested in whether hormones influence brains of women and men during development, during adulthood and during aging. She has been involved in the discussion of whether males and females have different strategies in learning and memory and whether this may make them more suited for some careers as opposed to others. She has been continuously funded by the NIH and has received two MERIT Awards, which provide funding for innovative research over a 10-year period of time. She has served on a number of scientific advisory committees, including NIH study sections, the advisory board for the Oregon Regional Primate Center, the scientific advisory council for the Society of Women's Health Research, the advisory board of the University of Michigan Nathan Shock Center for Biological Aging, the Kronos Research Foundation Board of Directors and the Buck Institute Board of Directors. Wise was featured in Parade Magazine cover story on "The Quiet Heroes" engaged in lifesaving research. She has received many awards, and is particularly proud of those that have acknowledged her lifelong dedication to mentoring students and junior investigators, particularly women. She received the Excellence in Science from the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology in 2002, and the Women in Endocrinology Mentor Award in 2003.