Hobson Wildenthal to Serve as President Ad Interim of UT Dallas

Dr. Hobson Wildenthal, provost and executive vice president at The University of Texas at Dallas, has been appointed president ad interim of the University by UT System Chancellor William McRaven.

Wildenthal’s appointment follows the recent announcement that UT Dallas President Dr. David E. Daniel will take on a new role as deputy chancellor and chief operating officer of the UT System.

The appointments are effective July 1. The UT System will launch a national search to select UT Dallas’ next president.

“I sincerely appreciate being asked by Chancellor McRaven to take interim leadership responsibility for UT Dallas,” said Wildenthal, who holds the Cecil H. Green Distinguished Chair of Academic Leadership. “It is an honor and a challenge that I will strive to meet successfully.” 

In 1992, Wildenthal joined UT Dallas as vice president for academic affairs. He was named executive vice president and provost in 1999.

“I will be leaving the Office of the President of UT Dallas in very capable hands,” Daniel said. “Dr. Hobson Wildenthal is a highly accomplished leader who has been instrumental in building academic excellence at the University for more than two decades. He not only has deep knowledge of UT Dallas, he also plays an integral role in the progress the University is making, including leading efforts to make critical academic hires and ensuring the continuing quality of the student body through his management of the recruitment and enrollment process.

“He will no doubt sustain and even increase our momentum in the months ahead.”

Wildenthal has appointed Dr. Inga Musselman as acting provost at UT Dallas. Musselman, an analytical chemist, joined the UT Dallas faculty in 1992 and was associate provost before being named senior vice provost in 2014. As acting provost, Musselman will be the chief academic officer and will oversee curricula, instruction and research activities.

“Our university has made truly impressive advances during David Daniel’s presidency, and we look forward to sustaining our current momentum,” Wildenthal said. “It is a privilege to work with our distinguished faculty and dedicated staff, with our community supporters, and with our student body that is marked both by its academic excellence and its tremendous spirit of pride and loyalty. Together, we will strive to ascend toward the highest echelons of learning and discovery.”

After graduating from the University of Kansas with a PhD in physics, Wildenthal held appointments at Rice University, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Texas A&M University, and, for 13 years, at Michigan State University. He devoted most of the 20 years of his pre-administrative academic career to experimental and theoretical studies of nuclear physics, work recounted in more than 200 research publications in journals and conference proceedings, and to teaching large classes of beginning undergraduate physics students.

He was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1973, and has held visiting appointments at Brookhaven and Los Alamos national laboratories, at the University of Munich, at the Max Planck Institute für Kernphysik in Heidelberg, at the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung in Darmstadt, at the University of Paris (Orsay), at the universities of Oxford and Manchester, and at the University of São Paulo.

Wildenthal moved into administrative roles first as department head of physics and atmospheric science at Drexel University, and then as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of New Mexico. He came to UT Dallas as chief academic officer with the title vice president for academic affairs at UT Dallas in 1992, his title changing to provost in 1994 and to executive vice president and provost in 1999.