Michael I. Kotlikoff

Michael I. Kotlikoff is the 15th president of Cornell University and professor of molecular physiology. Previously, Kotlikoff was Cornell’s longest-serving provost, holding that office from August 2015 to June 2024. Concurrently with his administrative duties as department chair, dean, and provost, Kotlikoff also oversaw an NIH-funded laboratory comprising senior scientists, postdocs, and graduate and undergraduate students, studying cardiovascular biology and heart repair.

Throughout his tenure at Cornell, President Kotlikoff has overseen numerous initiatives and landmark changes to advance the university’s excellence in teaching, scholarship, and outreach, and to enhance academic collaboration across Cornell’s disciplines, colleges, and campuses. Under Kotlikoff’s leadership as provost, Cornell created the Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science, Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy, and SC Johnson College of Business; multi-college departments of computational biology, design technology, economics, psychology, sociology, and statistics and data science.

Kotlikoff started at Cornell in 2000 as the founding chair of the Department of Biomedical Sciences and chair of the Mammalian Genomics Life Science Initiative, and served as the Austin O. Hooey Dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine from 2007 to 2015. His laboratory’s work is internationally recognized in cell signaling and heart repair and was continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health for over 35 years. During this time he pioneered the development of Ca2+ imaging tools.

Kotlikoff received his B.A. (literature) and V.M.D. degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and his Ph.D. in physiology from the University of California, Davis.