Ravi Bellamkonda was selected as Ohio State’s next president. Credit: Courtesy of Ohio State University
Ohio State Provost Ravi Bellamkonda will take over the leadership of the university, replacing former President Walter “Ted” Carter Jr., effective Thursday.
Less than a week after Carter announced his sudden resignation, the Board of Trustees have unusually decided for Bellamkonda to be the university’s 18th president. Bellamkonda has been in the provost role for about one year.
“Since joining Ohio State 14 months ago as our provost and chief academic leader, [Bellamkonda] has impressed all of us with his commitment to this university and its people, and with his vision, energy and collegial spirit, he played an integral role in crafting the university’s current strategic plan, and his leadership throughout the early phases of its implementation, excites us about what lies ahead,” John Zeiger, chair of the board, said.
In his remarks after the board approved his presidency, Bellamkonda praised the university for it’s research and academics, as much as its athletics.
“The whole world knows and talks of us as an athletics powerhouse, and that we are,” he said. “What the world doesn’t fully know… we are an academic powerhouse as well,” he said. “The best scholars in the world are in our classrooms teaching our undergraduate, graduate and professional students.”
Carter resigned a little over two years into his five-year contract after the board received an anonymous tip of the former president having an inappropriate relationship with someone seeking public resources. Carter confirmed the relationship and the board accepted his resignation on Sunday.
That person is presumably Krisanthe Vlachos, a podcaster for the show “The Callout,” meant to connect veterans and the military to the future of energy and utilities using AI, per prior Lantern reporting. It is still not known what the nature of the relationship was that led to Carter’s resignation.
Choosing a new president is usually a months-long process. Per prior Lantern reporting, universities typically hire consultants to conduct a search for a new president and appoint an interim president until that new leader is named.
The last time Ohio State appointed an interim president was in 2023 when former President Kristina M. Johnson resigned. Johnson left without explanation after just two-and-a-half years on the job.
At Ohio State, there have been five interim presidents, all of which were appointed since 1998, according to the university’s past president website.
Presidents were most commonly recruited or encouraged to apply by a search consultant or agency, followed by members of the Board of Trustees or governing group or the past president of their current campus, according to a 2023 study of American college presidents by the American Council on Education.
Bellamkonda will join the 28% of presidents who are not white, according to the study.
After a little over a year as provost and executive vice president, Bellamkonda oversaw Ohio State’s Office of Academic Affairs, 15 colleges, four regional campuses and more than 8,600 faculty, according to his university bio.
In a statement announcing Bellamkonda’s provost position, Carter said it was critical for the university to find someone who exemplifies the university’s “commitment to excellence in academics” and “collaborative leadership.”
Currently, Bellamkonda’s salary is $850,000, according to Ohio State’s salary database. The previous provost, Melissa Gilliam, had a base annual salary of $618,000.
It is not known what Bellamkonda will be paid as the next president.
Before Ohio State, Bellamkonda was Emory University’s provost and executive vice president for academic affairs for about two-and-a-half years, where he launched initiatives for student experience, arts and humanistic inquiry and AI in service to humanity, his bio states.
Carter will be leaving behind an AI fluency initiative, meant to teach students how to use AI as a tool to innovate and learn, and Buckeye Bridge, which allows students who graduated with an associates degree from Columbus State Community College to earn a bachelors at Ohio State for free.
Carter’s legacy also includes a 10-year strategic plan, Education for Citizenship 2035, for Ohio State to focus on academics, research and creative expression, health care, talent and culture, operations and collegiate athletics, according to its website.
A key question is whether Bellamkonda will keep or drop any of Carter’s initiatives.
Prior to Emory, Bellamkonda served as the Vinik Dean of the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University, his bio said. He also was the Wallace H. Coulter Professor and chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory.
He began his professional career in Ohio as an assistant and associate professor at Case Western Reserve University in 1995 before transitioning to Georgia Tech and Emory in 2003, per prior Lantern reporting.
Bellamkonda earned a bachelors in engineering from Osmania University in 1989. He then came to the U.S. to earn his Ph.D. at Brown University and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
He will be a part of the 84% of presidents who earned a doctoral degree, compared to Carter, who earned a bachelor’s and is a part of 0.6% of presidents with that degree, according to the college presidents survey.?
In addition to numerous awards, Bellamkonda received a National Institutes of Health Director’s Transformative Research Award for his work designing a “tractor beam” to treat pediatric brain tumors, according to his bio.
This is a breaking story that The Lantern will update as soon as more information is revealed.
The article was updated at 10:12 a.m. on March 12 to add Ravi Bellamkonda’s remarks following the board’s approval of his presidency.
