A private research university on Lake Michigan, celebrated for materials science, the Feinberg School of Medicine, Kellogg management, Medill journalism, and the performing arts.
24 professors and academic leaders celebrated so far, cited on every card. In pursuit of every professor, everywhere.
President
Office of the President
He stepped into the presidency in July 2026 as a working engineer-scholar, and it is heartening to see someone who still cares about the science lead the whole university.
Provost
Office of the Provost
He rose from chairing Materials Science to provost by July 2026 while never losing the simulation-scientist's respect for careful models, and that steady rigor is a gift to the faculty he now serves.
Dean of the McCormick School of Engineering
Materials Science and Engineering
A Northwestern PhD who came home from MIT to lead McCormick, he brings a metallurgist's patience and a builder's optimism to the whole engineering community.
Louis Simpson and Kimberly Querrey Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Biomedical Engineering and Neurological Surgery
Materials Science and Engineering
He invents electronics that bend, dissolve, and live gently on the human body, and his work turns hard physics into devices that quietly care for patients.
Board of Trustees Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Chemistry, Medicine and Biomedical Engineering
Materials Science and Engineering
He designs molecules that assemble themselves into materials that can help injured nerves regrow, and his bio-inspired imagination sits right at the border of chemistry and healing.
Lawyer Taylor Professor of Materials Science and Engineering
Materials Science and Engineering
A physicist from UNAM and Cambridge, she builds the theory that explains how soft, charged, living-like materials organize themselves, and she has opened that world to generations of students.
Bill and Cathy Osborn Professor of Computer Science
Computer Science
He has spent a career teaching machines to turn data into human stories, and his steady insistence on AI that serves people is exactly the voice this moment needs.
Vice President for Medical Affairs and Lewis Landsberg Dean
Feinberg School of Medicine
A physician-scientist of the kidney who has guided Feinberg's research rise for over a decade, he shows that great medicine and great leadership can live in the same person.
Walter J. Hamlin Professor of Dermatology
Department of Dermatology
After more than two decades chairing dermatology she is still at the bedside for children with the hardest skin diseases, and that lifelong devotion to young patients is deeply moving.
Aaron Montgomery Ward Professor and Chair of the Ken and Ruth Davee Department of Neurology
Department of Neurology
He chases the molecular roots of Parkinson's with patient-derived cells in hope of real therapies, and his relentless focus on turning discovery into treatment gives families genuine reason to hope.
Dean and Donald P. Jacobs Chair of Finance
Finance
She leads Kellogg with a finance scholar's clarity and a teacher's insistence on empathetic leadership, a rare and welcome pairing at the top of a business school.
Richard L. Thomas Professor of Leadership
Management and Organizations
He uses the mathematics of human networks to explain why some teams and collaborations catch fire, and his curiosity about what makes people great together is contagious.
Herman R. Smith Research Professor in Hospital and Health Services and Professor of Strategy
Strategy
He brings honest, evidence-first economics to the messy business of healthcare and drug pricing, and his willingness to follow the data wherever it leads makes the debate saner.
George B. Rathmann Professor of Chemistry
Department of Chemistry
His invention of spherical nucleic acids and dip-pen nanolithography reshaped nanoscience, yet what stands out is how many of those ideas became real medical and sensing tools.
Chair and Joan Husting Madden and William H. Madden, Jr. Professor of Chemistry
Department of Chemistry
She shapes light with precisely engineered nanoparticles and leads the chemistry department with the same care, a scientist and mentor in equal measure.
Daniel I. Linzer Distinguished University Professor of Physics and Astronomy
Department of Physics and Astronomy
A leader in the LIGO collaboration that first heard gravitational waves, she reads the collisions of black holes and neutron stars and shares that cosmic wonder generously.
Robert H. Strotz Professor of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Economics and History
Department of Economics
His 2025 Nobel recognized a lifetime spent explaining why useful knowledge finally made sustained growth possible, and after fifty years he still teaches undergraduates and advises PhD students.
Henry Wade Rogers Professor of Psychology
Department of Psychology
He gave psychology the idea that we are the life stories we tell, and his humane attention to how people make meaning has changed how a whole field understands a person.
Myra and James Bradwell Professor of Law
Law
Having led the law school and now directing its Energy Innovation Lab, she works to bridge scientists, scholars, and lawmakers on climate, and that bridge-building spirit is exactly what the problem demands.
John Paul Stevens Professor of Law
Law
He writes about free speech, religion, and the Constitution with a philosopher's honesty and a clear public voice, arguing hard questions in good faith across the political divide.
Dean of the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications
Journalism
A Medill graduate and former Ebony editor who came back to lead the school he loves, he champions journalism that makes society more informed and more just.
Charles Deering McCormick Distinguished Professor and Professor of Journalism
Journalism
A longtime Washington Post correspondent and New Yorker writer, he was honored with Northwestern's highest teaching award, and that devotion to students in the newsroom is its own kind of public service.
Dean of the School of Communication and Annenberg University Professor
Performance Studies and Black Studies
A scholar-artist who performs the oral histories of Black queer life, he leads the School of Communication as its first African American dean and makes room for stories long left untold.
Dean of the Bienen School of Music and Kay Davis Professor of Music
Composition
An award-winning composer who now leads Bienen, he pairs a working artist's ear with two decades of care for how young musicians learn and grow.
This directory is unbounded, in pursuit of every professor at every university, everywhere. Every person is real, public, and cited; anyone featured can ask to be updated or removed.
A celebration of the faculty and academic leaders of Northwestern University, assembled entirely from public information as an act of credit and gratitude. It is not a claim of endorsement, affiliation, sponsorship, or partnership by anyone featured or by the university. Every person is real and publicly documented, with a cited source of truth on their card; we never invent a person or a claim, and we prize accuracy over speed. Anyone featured can ask to be updated or removed at any time. Names and marks belong to their owners.