Singer to step down as senior vice provost for faculty

Judith D. Singer, James Bryant Conant Professor of Education, will step down on June 30 from her role as senior vice provost for faculty, the University announced today.

A statistician by training and community-builder by practice, Singer was the first woman to be elected as both a member of the National Academy of Education and a fellow of the American Statistical Association. At Harvard, she is widely known for helping a wide-ranging group of academics pursue meaningful work — recruiting outstanding scholars and nurturing their efforts across decades.

As senior vice provost for faculty, Singer has overseen faculty development across the University since 2008. Her team coordinates efforts to recruit and retain scholars, help advance their research and teaching, and support their work-life balance. She serves as an adviser in the ad hoc tenure process, chairs the Provost’s Review Committee on Faculty Appointments, oversees funding for scholarly appointments, and guides all policies and practices affecting institutional faculty affairs.

“Few people have done as much to nurture and sustain academic excellence across the University as Judy Singer,” said President Alan M. Garber. “When I returned to Harvard in 2011, she quickly became one of my most trusted advisers, a person of great discernment who is valued for her good humor as well as her knowledge and wisdom. I am grateful to Judy for her tireless work to fulfill our mission and to strengthen our community. I wish her all the best for her next chapter.”

“As senior vice provost for faculty, Judy has advanced faculty excellence through tireless and thoughtful work on the appointment and retention of exceptional scholars across disciplines, the shaping of policies that enhance their teaching and scholarship, and the development of initiatives to support work-life balance,” said University Provost John F. Manning. “We are deeply grateful for her extraordinary service to the University over many years.”

Singer has led major changes to every phase of faculty life, from streamlining recruitment and promotion to strengthening retirement benefits. Working alongside partners across all the Schools, she developed best practices for faculty recruitment and retention, creating resources and providing consultation to Schools on faculty appointments, programming, and benefits. She has helped create and implement fair, rigorous, and consistent processes for University-level review of academic, endowed chair, and University Professorship appointments.

Her office also launched the University’s online central faculty hiring portal and, in 2020, supported the transition to remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic and explored its long-term implications for faculty.

Singer has also worked to build a broad network of support for faculty. She oversaw the formation of University-wide faculty medical leave policies, childcare and other dependent care resources, financial support programs, and improvements to the faculty mortgage-loan programs. Over the years, she and her team have created professional development events, covering topics such as op-ed writing, academic publishing, and media training, as well as networking events for faculty members and their partners. She has also worked to collect and analyze data that help support recruitment and retention policy and decision-making across all areas of faculty affairs.

“Judy Singer began her role at a time of turmoil at the University,” said Steven Hyman, who was University provost in 2008 when Singer was appointed. “With energy, intelligence, great judgment, and relentless determination, she improved processes for faculty hiring, promotion, retention, and even quality of life. Her success served equity, the prioritization of excellence, and much else that the University prizes.”

Drew Faust, Harvard president at the time of Singer’s appointment, echoed the sentiment: “Judy Singer has brought fierce energy and a deep commitment to excellence and intellectual rigor to her role as senior vice provost. Her dedication to the fundamental values of scholarship and of universities has had an impact on the quality of the faculty that will be her enduring legacy.”

A prominent member of the faculty herself, Singer has focused her academic work on improving the quantitative methods used in social, educational, and behavioral research. Her scholarship has been especially influential in the development and application of multilevel modeling, survival analysis, and individual growth modeling — and in making these and other sophisticated methodologies more accessible for applied researchers.

A scholar with wide expertise, she has published prolifically across statistics, education, psychology, medicine, and public health, including nearly 100 academic papers and book chapters as well as three co-authored books: “By Design: Planning Better Research in Higher Education,” “Who Will Teach: Policies that Matter,” and “Applied Longitudinal Data Analysis: Modeling Change and Event Occurrence.”

She serves as a fellow of the American Educational Research Association; previously she served on the board of directors of the National Board of Education Sciences and as a founding board member of the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness.

Singer began her academic career in 1984 as an assistant professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. In 2001, she was named James Bryant Conant Professor of Education. She served as academic dean of HGSE from 1999 to 2004 and, along with her longtime research collaborator, John B. Willett, was acting dean from 2001 to 2002.

She holds a B.A. in mathematics from the State University of New York at Albany and a Ph.D. in statistics from Harvard University.

“It has been an honor to work closely with presidents, provosts, and deans these last 18 years toward our shared goal of supporting excellence across Harvard’s faculty,” said Singer. “I have been fortunate to lead a remarkable team in building the frameworks, practices, and resources that enable Harvard to attract and retain the best and brightest scholars from around the world and support them in their work.”

To learn more about faculty affairs at Harvard, see the Office of the Senior Vice Provost for Faculty website.