Biography

Marie Lynn Miranda, a nationally renowned leader in higher education and geospatial health informatics, became the 10th chancellor of the University of Illinois Chicago in July 2023. She also serves as a faculty member in the Department of Pediatrics and the Department of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science. Chancellor Miranda brings a focus on access and excellence at scale across UIC’s educational, research, and clinical enterprises. She champions a vision that prioritizes the success of students and seeks to enhance faculty scholarship and UIC’s $500 million research profile.

As chancellor of UIC, Miranda has introduced five strategic priorities essential to UIC’s continued success as Chicago’s only public research university. These priorities reaffirm UIC’s commitment to student success; expand the research profile to position the university at the forefront of innovation and Chicago’s knowledge economy; engage with the region’s communities with a focus on educational and health equity; forge productive partnerships with businesses, nonprofits, and the government sector to create opportunities for faculty and student engagement; and elevate UIC as a destination to recruit and retain world-class faculty and staff. These priorities are advancing the university’s equity-focused mission to provide the broadest access to the highest levels of educational, research, and clinical excellence.

Miranda is also director of the Children’s Environmental Health Initiative (CEHI), a research, education, and outreach organization committed to fostering environments where all people can prosper. The initiative is best known for its work on childhood lead exposure — contributing to the CDC’s decision to set a more protective standard for childhood blood lead levels, developing strategies for combating lead in drinking water, and identifying lead in aviation gasoline as a contributor to elevated blood lead levels. CEHI’s most recent work focuses on racial residential segregation and how segregated neighborhoods experience greater exposure to social and environmental stressors, which drive health and educational disparities. CEHI now calls UIC and Chicago home.

Miranda’s tenure at UIC is also marked by her active involvement in Chicago’s civic life. She serves on the Board of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce and is a member of the Economic Club of Chicago and The Chicago Network. She also serves on several national boards, including the Doris Duke Foundation, the Environmental Defense Fund, the National Institute for Nursing Research, the Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology, and the Executive Committee of the Board of Hispanic Serving Research Universities.

Before joining UIC, Miranda held leadership roles at several prominent institutions. She served as provost at Notre Dame, where she led the academic response to the COVID-19 pandemic and launched diversity initiatives. At Rice University, as provost she implemented $230 million in strategic investments centered around molecular nanotechnology, data sciences, neuroengineering, inequities and inequalities, and general research competitiveness. At the University of Michigan, she restructured the doctoral program and enhanced alumni relations as dean of the School of Natural Resources and Environment. Miranda started her academic career at Duke University, where she was a faculty member for 21 years and served as director of undergraduate programs for the Nicholas School of the Environment.

Miranda is a Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude graduate of Duke University, where she earned a bachelor’s in mathematics and economics and was named a Truman Scholar. She has a PhD and master’s from Harvard University, where she held a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Miranda is also a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Miranda and her husband, Christopher Geron, are the proud parents of three children, two English Setters, and roughly 500,000 honeybees.