M. Elizabeth Magill

M. Elizabeth “Liz” Magill became the University of Pennsylvania’s ninth president in July 2022. At Penn, she also serves as a Trustees University Professor and Professor of Law. Before her arrival at Penn, Magill served as Executive Vice President and Provost at the University of Virginia and, prior to that, as the Richard E. Lang Professor and Dean of the Stanford Law School. Magill’s leadership at both UVA and Stanford brought transformative changes to both institutions.

A scholar of administrative and constitutional law, Magill is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the American Law Institute. She has been a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, held a fellowship in the Law and Public Affairs Program at Princeton University, and was the Thomas Jefferson visiting professor at Downing College, Cambridge University. Her articles have been published in leading law reviews, and she has won several awards for her scholarly contributions. 

Prior to her career in higher education, Magill acquired experience working in politics and at the U.S. Supreme Court. After completing her bachelor’s degree in history at Yale University in 1988, Magill served as a senior legislative assistant for energy and natural resources for U.S. Senator Kent Conrad, a position she held for four years. She left Capitol Hill to attend UVA’s School of Law, where she was articles development editor of the Virginia Law Review. After graduating in 1995, Magill clerked for Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and then for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.