Michael V. Drake

Michael V. Drake is president of the University of California (UC). He leads a system of ten campuses, six academic health centers, three affiliated national laboratories, more than 290,000 students and 240,000 faculty and staff. He holds faculty appointments as a professor of ophthalmology at the UCSF School of Medicine and as a professor of medicine at the UC Riverside School of Medicine. Under his leadership, UC has expanded its strong commitment to access, affordability, and academic excellence, all while weathering the COVID-19 pandemic. The university has continued to grow its enrollment and has worked to increase student diversity, enhanced student support, and affordability through the Tuition Stability Plan, the Native American Opportunity Plan, and an effort to create a debt-free path to a UC education. He has also been a strong advocate for diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging efforts, including work to reimagine campus safety and policing at the University of California. That process led to the UC Community Safety Plan, providing a clear set of guiding principles. He served as president of Ohio State University from 2014 to 2020. Prior to that role, his entire academic career was spent at the University of California, including as chancellor of UC Irvine and as UC systemwide vice president for health affairs. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. During more than two decades of national leadership in higher education, he has chaired the boards of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, the Association of American Universities, and the National Collegiate Athletic Association. He received his BA from Stanford University and his MD and residency training from the University of California, San Francisco.