The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has appointed Professor Anantha Chandrakasan as its next provost, effective July 1, 2025, making him the first Indian-American to hold a top academic leadership position.

On June 16, MIT issued a statement announcing the appointment of Chandrakasan as the new provost.

Chandrakasan, who is now the dean of MIT's School of Engineering and the institute's initial Chief Innovation and Strategy Officer, takes over for Cynthia Barnhart, who announced her retirement in February of this year, CNBC TV18 reports.

As provost, he will be responsible for instructional programming, faculty affairs, financial strategy, and institutional planning at MIT.

"Anantha brings to this post an exceptional record of shaping and leading important innovations for the Institute. We will be able to draw on Anantha’s depth and breadth of experience; his nimbleness, entrepreneurial spirit and boundless energy; his remarkable record in raising funds from outside sources for important ideas," MIT President Sally Kornbluth noted in the email announcing the decision.

Chandrakasan has earned bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley. He directed MIT's Energy-Efficient Circuits and Systems Groups and guided 78 PhD students.

His scholarly contributions have received widespread recognition, with over 1,20,000 citations to his name.

Among his academic accomplishments are projects such as the Advanced Undergraduate Research Opportunities Programme (also known as 'SuperUROP') and the Rising Stars Programme, which aim to promote undergraduate and female postdoctoral researchers in engineering.

Chandrakasan, a faculty member at MIT since 1994, oversaw the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), MIT's largest academic department, for six years before becoming Dean of the School of Engineering in 2017.

His appointment as MIT's first Chief Innovation and Strategy Officer occurred in 2024, and he was tasked with driving forward new research, education, and innovation efforts.

Throughout his administrative tenure, Chandrakasan was instrumental in establishing key interdisciplinary programs such as the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing and the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium, among others, to bridge the gap between academia and industry.