Rebecca M Blank

Rebecca Blank, chancellor of UW-Madison for nine years, died of cancer Friday, the university announced.. Blank had ended her tenure with UW-Madison in 2022 and left to become the first female president of Northwestern University. She withdrew from the position in July 2023, due to her cancer diagnosis. Blank, former dean of the Ford School at the University of Michigan, also served as as Under Secretary for Economic Affairs in the US Department of Commerce. Blank was the dean of the Ford School for eight years stepping down in July 2017, and was also co-director of the National Poverty Center; she was the Robert S. Kerr Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. As Under Secretary for Economic Affairs, Becky managed and oversaw the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Economic Affairs. In addition, she served as the head of the Economics and Statistics Administration, which provides critical economic analysis to the Secretary of Commerce. She graduated with a degree in Economics from the University of Minnesota and continued her education at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for her PhD.She is survived by her husband Hanns Kuttner, daughter, brother and mother.