Pitt names Joan T.A. Gabel its first woman chancellor
The university’s board of trustees approved Gabel’s hiring as the school’s 19th chancellor following a seven-month search process that vetted candidates from all over the country as well as overseas.
The University of Pittsburgh named the University of Minnesota system and Twin Cities campus president and CEO as its next chancellor.
Joan T.A. Gabel will become the first woman to lead the 30,000-plus student university when she takes over the helm on July 1. She replaces Patrick Gallagher, who has served as the school's chancellor for the past nine years. He will remain on Pitt's faculty as a professor in its Department of Physics and Astronomy.
The university’s board of trustees voted on Monday to approve Gabel’s hiring as the school’s 19th chancellor following a seven-month search process that vetted candidates from all over the country as well as overseas, said Doug Browning, who chairs the trustees’ board.
“She clearly reflects the vision, drive, experience and understanding of the issues and complexities of leading a major research university,” Browning said.
Gabel, who holds a bachelor’s degree from Haverford College in Delaware County, has served in her leadership post at the University of Minnesota since 2019. She held previous administrative posts at University of South Carolina and University of Missouri and teaching roles at Georgia State and Florida State universities.
Gabel, speaking in a hoarse voice, ingratiated herself to the Pitt community in her acceptance remarks by dropping the names of some of its famed alumni. Among others, she mentioned William Hunter Dammond, the school’s first Black graduate; Pro Football Hall of Famer Tony Dorsett, Nobel Prize winners Wangari Maathai and discoverers like Jonas Salk and Peter Saffer.
“It’s in that spirit that I recognize my incredible fortune to be joining you and to be joining such an amazing community first as a Pitt mom and now as your chancellor-elect,” she said. Her child currently is enrolled at the university.
Trustee Eva Tansky Blum, who chaired the 26-person search committee, said “I am confident that she will build on the remarkable trajectory that Chancellor Gallagher established.”
At a post-meeting news conference, Gabel said she chose to come to Pitt from a larger university after looking at “the totality of the different ways in which universities execute on their quality, what kind of community they create and I really wanted to be a part of this.”
