Vice President and Associate Provost for Graduate Studies and Dean of the Graduate School

Michael Hildreth, professor of physics and astronomy

Michael Hildreth was named vice president and associate provost for graduate studies and dean of the Graduate School, effective July 1, 2023.

As dean, he oversees the master’s and doctoral programs within engineering, global affairs, the humanities, the sciences, business (doctoral), and the social sciences; is responsible for graduate policies and procedures; and provides services, support, and resources for graduate students in the areas of recruitment and admissions, professional development, wellness, community, financial support, and degree completion. He also oversees the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs and the Moreau Faculty Development Program and works closely with the vice president for research and the associate deans for graduate education from the University’s colleges and schools.

A member of the Notre Dame faculty since 2000, Hildreth is widely recognized for his contributions to particle physics, its software infrastructure, and the technology and policies of open data. He and other physicists at Notre Dame played a significant role in the Higgs boson discovery in 2012 by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN near Geneva. Most recently, Hildreth was the co-coordinator of the software and computing research and development effort for the U.S. operations program of the CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) experiment.

A fellow of the American Physical Society, Hildreth has served on the national High Energy Physics Advisory Panel and the National Science Foundation’s Advisory Committee on Cyberinfrastructure. He is the co-author of more than 1,700 publications and also is a highly regarded teacher, receiving the College of Science’s Rev. James L. Shilts, C.S.C./Doris and Eugene Leonard Teaching Award in 2014, the Thomas P. Madden Award for first-year teaching in 2010, and a Rev. Edmund P. Joyce, C.S.C., Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching in 2008. Prior to his appointment as dean of the graduate school, Hildreth served as senior associate dean for research and graduate studies in the College of Science.

Hildreth earned his doctorate in physics from Stanford University after receiving a bachelor’s degree in the field from Princeton University. Before coming to Notre Dame, he was a scientific associate and staff physicist at CERN.