Sian Leah Beilock

Sian Leah Beilock is the 19th president of Dartmouth. She is the first woman to have been elected president of Dartmouth by the Board of Trustees and began her tenure on June 12, 2023.

She previously served as the eighth president of Barnard College at Columbia University. During her tenure at Barnard, Beilock enhanced STEM research and teaching programs to parallel the college's renown in the arts and humanities; implemented Feel Well, Do Well, a campus-wide health and wellness initiative; and launched Beyond Barnard, a one-stop shop for career resources at Barnard and beyond. Before joining Barnard, Beilock spent 12 years at the University of Chicago, where she was the executive vice provost, serving as an officer of the university, and the Stella M. Rowley Professor of Psychology.

Beilock is a leading expert on the brain science behind "choking under pressure" in business, education, and sports. In the last several years, her research has focused specifically on success in math and science for women and girls and on how performance anxiety can either be exacerbated or alleviated by teachers, parents, and peers. She is the author of the critically acclaimed Choke and How the Body Knows Its Mind, which have been published in more than a dozen languages, and she has published 120 peer-reviewed scientific papers. Beilock is the recipient of a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation and, in 2017, she won the Troland Research Award from the National Academy of Sciences for her "fundamental contributions to our understanding of human skill learning and performance breakdowns in high-pressure and anxiety-provoking situations." 

Beilock earned her bachelor of science in cognitive science from the University of California, San Diego, and doctorate degrees in psychology and kinesiology from Michigan State University.