Martha E. Pollack

Martha E. Pollack is the 14th president of Cornell University, where is she is also a professor of computer science, information science, and linguistics. Cornell is the only land-grant university in the Ivy League and Pollack is committed to maintaining its high standards in teaching and research and upholding its public mission to discover, preserve, and disseminate knowledge. She sees Cornell’s foundational commitment to diversity and equity as central to our identity and success, and has engaged the entire university in the work of building an open, inclusive community whose members communicate effectively across difference. In her leadership of Cornell’s many units and campuses, she works to cultivate productive and meaningful synergies across disciplines and geographies.

Pollack is an expert in artificial intelligence with a research focus on natural-language processing, automated planning, and the design of assistive technology for people with cognitive impairment. She earned a bachelor’s degree in linguistics at Dartmouth College and an M.S. and Ph.D. in computer and information science at the University of Pennsylvania. She was previously provost and executive vice president for academic affairs at the University of Michigan, where she was also professor of computer science and information.