The Board of Trustees voted to appoint Steve A.N. Goldstein '78 as the provost of the University, University President Frederick Lawrence announced today in an e-mail to the Brandeis community.

Goldstein is a professor of pediatrics at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine and director of the Institute of Molecular Pediatric Sciences. He will replace Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Marty Krauss, who announced last August that she would resign as provost by this month.

The informal transition period for Goldstein will begin this week, and Krauss will serve in her current position until the end of June, according to Senior Vice President for Communications and External Affairs Andrew Gully in a June 1 e-mail to the Justice.

Goldstein will serve as the first provost following the November 29, 2010 report of the Administrative Structure Advisory Committee to then-President-elect Lawrence and then-President Jehuda Reinharz, which evaluated the roles of Provost and Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment.

The committee, among other suggestions, strengthened the role of the provost and defined the position as the "Chief Academic Officer and the second-ranking member of the administration," according to the November committee report.

Under these new guidelines, which Lawrence and Reinharz accepted and announced in a Dec. 2, 2010 campuswide e-mail, both Academic Services and the Office of the University Registrar now report to the provost instead of the Senior Vice President of Students and Enrollment, according to the report.

Lawrence wrote in his June 1 e-mail that, "As provost, Steve will serve as the university's chief academic officer." In that role, he explained, Goldstein will supervise many of the University's senior officers as well as the Office of the Arts, the Rose Art Museum as well as research centers and institutes.

Since becoming president in January, Lawrence has placed an emphasis on developing a strategic plan for the University, and Goldstein will have a leadership role in that planning process, said Lawrence in a June 2 interview with the Justice.

According to Lawrence, "One of the most important goals for Steve is that he will play a very important leadership role in the strategic planning process that will begin even this summer and continue on through into the fall as we begin to plan the next steps for Brandeis."

In an interview with the Justice, Goldstein also emphasized the role of a strategic plan for the University's future. "I think where we are is excellent, where we've come in 60 years is impressive, and where we can go is hard to fathom, and so I think the strategic plan is crucial to charting the right course for the next 5 to 10 years, and so I am enthusiastic about being involved in that with all levels of the institution," he said.

A search committee to find Krauss' successor was formed in January. According to a Jan. 5 e-mail from Lawrence, the committee was comprised of six faculty members, three staff members, a trustee, a graduate student and one undergraduate student.

The provost search committee was chaired by Prof. Sacha Nelson (BIOL), includes Ph.D. candidate Jane Harries, Student Union Director of Academic Affairs Marla Merchut '12, Prof. John Plotz (ENG), Chair of East Asian Studies Prof. Aida Yuen Wong (FA), Prof. David Cunningham (SOC), Prof. Anita Hill (Heller), Prof. Carol Osler (IBS), Senior Vice President for Finance and Chief Financial Officer Frances Drolette, Dean of Academic Services Kim Godsoe, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs Michaele Whelan and member of the provost Board of Trustees member and Heller School Board of Overseers Thomas Glynn, according to a Jan. 18 Justice article.

The committee also partnered with the search firm Storbeck/Pimentel and Associates, LLC, the same firm that helped identify Lawrence as a candidate for president, to recommend potential candidates for the position, according to that Justice article.

In a June 2 interview with the Justice, Plotz, who served as a faculty representative on the committee, said, "The thing that came up again and again [in the search process] that I think really relates to Steve is that people really wanted vision, and they wanted people ... who were not afraid to take chances and to try out new ways of thinking about the model of what makes a great university. The president had signaled really strongly that he was interested in ... people looking forward to completely different ways of conceptualizing what a university is. [Goldstein] was exciting in that way. Steve Goldstein was someone who stood out, I think, to everyone who met him as someone who has this incredible creativity, imagination and vision."

When asked in an interview with the Justice what advice she would impart on Goldstein, Krauss said, "He is going to need a good year to really understand the calendar of Brandeis and to get to know the faculty and the academic programs and I think he should take that year to become fully aware of all of the strengths and challenges Brandeis faces."

Lawrence wrote in his e-mail that Goldstein grew up in New York City and earned his bachelor's and master's degrees from the University in biochemistry in 1978, graduating Phi Beta Kappa.

Goldstein also holds an M.D. and Ph.D. in immunology from Harvard University and "is a leading authority on the molecular mechanisms underlying normal cardiac function and sudden life-threatening diseases of the heart," wrote Lawrence.

Goldstein served from 1993 to 2004 on the faculty at the Yale University School of Medicine and in 2004 he became the chairman of the department of pediatrics and physician-in-chief at Comer Children's Hospital at the University of Chicago.

Goldstein said, "Both as an undergraduate and as a postdoctoral trainee at Brandeis, I received the precious gift that the school bestows so naturally: a personalized education," in a BrandeisNOW press release. "Here, students are given a remarkable opportunity to pursue their dreams. I cannot think of a more exciting challenge than returning to Brandeis to help others find new ways to shape the world in which we live."

Emily Kraus contributed reporting.

Editor's note: This article was last updated on June 2 from the original version posted on June 1.