Phil Hanlon ’77 became the 18th president of Dartmouth College on June 10, 2013. He is the 10th Dartmouth alumnus to serve as its president and the first since the 1981 to 1987 tenure of David T. McLaughlin ’54, Tuck ’55.
President Hanlon, 57, previously the Donald J. Lewis Professor of Mathematics at the University of Michigan, earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Dartmouth, from which he graduated Phi Beta Kappa. An accomplished academic and administrative leader, Hanlon had been a Michigan faculty member since 1986 and served in a succession of administrative leadership roles there for more than a decade, most recently as the provost and executive vice president for academic affairs.
As a mathematician, Hanlon focuses on probability and combinatorics, the study of finite structures and their significance as they relate to bioinformatics, computer science, and other fields. Hanlon has earned numerous honors and awards for his mathematical research, including a Sloan Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Henry Russel Award, and the National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and held an Arthur F. Thurnau Professorship, the University of Michigan’s highest recognition of faculty whose commitment to undergraduate teaching has had a demonstrable impact on the intellectual development and lives of their students.
Hanlon is married to Gail Gentes, who joined Dartmouth as the director of action-based learning programs. The couple has three children, all in their 20s. (See President Hanlon's full biography.)
