October 5, 2009

A&S Dean Adam Falk named president of Williams College

Adam Falk, the James B. Knapp Dean of the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences at Johns Hopkins, has been elected the 17th president of Williams College in Williamstown, Mass. He will assume the post on April 1. The college’s trustees made the announcement Sept. 28.

In a broadcast e-mail to the Johns Hopkins community, President Ronald J. Daniels said, “They have made, as so many of us here at Johns Hopkins will attest, an inspired choice.”

Daniels described Dean Falk as “an extraordinary leader, teacher and scholar who has done a spectacular job in the Krieger School.

“He has added, thoughtfully and strategically, to the excellence of the school’s faculty and academic programs,” Daniels said. “He has sharpened significantly our focus on the undergraduate experience, inside the classroom and out. He has provided important new opportunities for lifelong learning and career development to nontraditional students in the school’s Advanced Academic Programs. He has imagined, planned and executed important capital projects, not least the stunning renovation of Gilman Hall now under way. And he has worked tirelessly with faculty, staff, alumni volunteers and others to attract to the school the resources that have made possible all these advances.”

Falk, a high-energy physicist, joined Johns Hopkins as an assistant professor in 1994 and became a full professor in 2000. In 2002, he was named vice dean of the faculty, a position later changed to dean of the faculty. He was named interim dean of the school in 2005 and assumed his current post in 2006.

He has won both the Johns Hopkins Alumni Association’s Excellence in Teaching Award and National Young Investigator recognition from the National Science Foundation.

Falk completed his bachelor’s degree in physics with highest distinction at the University of North Carolina, where he was a Morehead Scholar, and earned his doctorate in physics at Harvard in 1991. Before joining Johns Hopkins, he held postdoctoral appointments at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and the University of California, San Diego.

Daniels said that the university will move expeditiously to launch a search for the next James B. Knapp Dean of the Krieger School and will announce details when they are finalized.