Meet Jayathi Murthy, First Woman of Color Named President of Oregon State University

Jayathi Murthy has scripted history by becoming the first-ever woman of color to lead Oregon State University. She was unanimously voted by Oregon State’s Board of Trustees for the post. She will become Oregon State University’s 16th president on September 9. She will be succeeding President Becky Johnson.

Here's everything you should know about Jayathi Murthy

• She is 64-years-old.
• She is a mechanical engineer
• She was previously serving as the Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science at UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles)
• She also led the effort to establish Women in Engineering at UCLA. It is a program that supports the full participation of women in engineering.
• She has held leadership positions at various universities like the University of Texas and Purdue University.
• Under her leadership, she hopes to double the amount of money available for research at the university in the next ten years. She also plans to hire and retain top-notch faculty.
• She also wants to focus most on her students. She wants students from different backgrounds to have access to the opportunity to learn.
• “My message to them is they are the center of our enterprise, what they do matters, what they experience matters, what they learn matters. Everything that happens to them while they are students here matters, so they are a part of our family and we are responsible for their success,” Murthy said in a statement.

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• She got married to Dr. Sanjay Mathur. He is an aerospace engineer.
• He works at SparkCognition, a firm specializing in artificial intelligence systems and development.
• Jayathi Murthy has authored over 330 technical publications.
• She has a doctorate in mechanical engineering from the University of Minnesota.
• She has a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Washington State University and a bachelor’s of technology degree in mechanical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.
• She is the recipient of many honors including the ASME Heat Transfer Memorial Award in 2016 and the ASME Electronics and Photonic Packaging Division Clock Award.

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