In becoming Iowa State University’s 14th president on July 1, 2001, Gregory L. Geoffroy brought more than 25 years of experience as a teacher, researcher and administrator at two of the nation’s leading land-grant institutions to Iowa State’s ambitious quest to become the nation’s best land-grant university.

As Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at the University of Maryland, College Park, for four years beginning in 1997, Geoffroy was responsible for the academic development of this campus of 32,800 students and 11,300 faculty and staff; as well as faculty and student recruitment, organized research, and budgetary responsibility for all academic and related programs. In addition, Geoffroy chaired the University of Maryland’s most recent strategic planning process, and from July to September of 1998 he served as interim president of the university, providing additional leadership in overall campus development, fundraising, and government and other external relations.

Geoffroy began his academic career in 1974 at The Pennsylvania State University as an assistant professor, advancing to associate professor in 1978 and professor in 1982. In 1988 he was named head of Penn State’s Department of Chemistry, and the next year he was appointed dean of Penn State’s Eberly College of Science.

Only the second of Iowa State’s 14 presidents to come from a chemistry background, Geoffroy is a nationally acclaimed researcher in organometallic chemistry. He has published more than 200 research articles in refereed journals; presented more than 200 invited lectures in the United States and nine other nations; is co-author of the book Organometallic Photochemistry, and has directed the work of nearly 60 M.S., Ph.D. and post-doctoral students. He has also made special efforts to involve undergraduate students in research by providing opportunities for more than 50 undergraduate students to join his research group.

Geoffroy’s teaching and research have earned him fellowships from the Alfred P. Sloan and John Simon Guggenheim Foundations, visiting professorships to major universities in Germany and France, the Dreyfus Foundation Teacher-Scholar Award, and, in 1991, election as a Fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Geoffroy has served in various leadership capacities in the Association for Universities for Research in Astronomy and in the American Chemical Society’s Division of Inorganic Chemistry. Prior to moving into academic administration, he chaired four national or international symposia in organometallic chemistry.

Dr. Geoffroy earned the B.S. With Honors from the University of Louisville in 1968. He served as an officer in the U.S. Navy from 1969 to 1970, then pursued graduate study at the California Institute of Technology, earning the Ph.D. in 1974. He and his wife, Kathleen Carothers Geoffroy, have four children.