Who are UW-Madison’s three provost finalists?

After a nine-month search to replace the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s second-highest academic official, three finalists — Anna Stenport, John Zumbrunnen and Charles Martinez Jr. — are presenting their visions for the future of campus this week. 

With Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin departing UW-Madison at the end of the semester, the next provost will play a key role in shaping campus policy during a transitional period for the university. 

Former UW-Madison Provost Charles Isbell Jr. announced his departure in June to become the president of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and vice president of the University of Illinois System. 

In the time since, a search-and-screen committee of 15 faculty members, staff and students has been working with executive search firm Isaacson, Miller to conduct the search.

Now, they’ve narrowed the list down to just three finalists, including Interim Provost Zumbrennan, who are presenting on the largest challenges facing research institutions like UW-Madison and how they would approach solving them as provost. 

Anna Stenport - University of Georgia

Stenport is the current dean of the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Georgia. She has been in this role since 2023 and also serves as a professor of Communication Studies.

Before heading to Athens, she was the dean of the College of Liberal Arts at the Rochester Institute of Technology from 2021-2023. From 2016-2021 she chaired the College of Languages at Georgia Institute of Technology and from 2005 to 2016 worked at UIUC, beginning as an associate professor and ending as the director of undergraduate research. She taught a multitude of subjects, including Comparative and World Literature, Media and Cinema, Scandinavian Studies, Theatre, and Gender and Women’s Studies while at Illinois. 

A native of Sweden, she received both her B.A. in French, Literature and Media Studies and her master's in Literature from Uppsala University in Uppsala, Sweden. Her PhD in Comparative Literature is from the University of California, Berkeley. 

John Zumbrunnen - University of Wisconsin-Madison

Zumbrunnen is currently serving as UW-Madison’s interim provost and has held the role since Isbell’s departure. He is in his sixth year in leadership at UW-Madison, having been vice provost for t and learning beginning in 2020 before becoming the senior vice provost for academic affairs in 2023, a role created with Isbell’s arrival. 

Before moving to Bascom Hall, Zumbrunnen was the Chair of the Political Science department and has been a professor in the department since coming to Madison in 2008. 

In Zumbrunnen’s past nine months as interim, he has worked with the Vice Chancellor of Finances and Administration on university-wide budget cuts, helped implement new Act 15 workload policies, overseen the new RISE initiatives and worked with the Chancellor to develop the new Wisconsin Exchange program. 

Much of this work, such as work on the RISE initiative, began in his role as senior vice provost, where Zumbrunnen’s CV said that he was “involved in many of the core functions of the Office of the Provost.”  

Zumbrunnen, a Missouri native, got his B.S. in political science from Southwest Missouri State University and his PhD from the University of Minnesota. Between his PhD and joining UW-Madison’s faculty, he was an Associate Professor of Political Science at Union College in New York for eight years.

Charles Martinez Jr. - University of Texas-Austin

Martinez currently serves as the dean of education at the University of Texas-Austin. He has been at UT since 2019, when he was announced as dean. 

Before that, he was a tenured professor of Educational Policy at the University of Oregon. Martinez spent 22 years in Eugene, beginning as a postdoctoral fellow at their Social Learning Center studying Mental Health, then becoming an associate professor in 2004, and a research scientist — later senior scientist — at Oregon’s Social Learning Center in 2009. 

Martinez is a native of Southern California, having done his bachelor’s in Psychology at Pitzer College in Claremont, California. Both his master's and PhD were done in Clinical Psychology at the California School of Professional Psychology in San Diego. 

Martinez is a native of Southern California, having done his bachelor’s in Psychology at Pitzer College in Claremont, California. Both his masters and PhD were done in Clinical Psychology at the California School of Professional Psychology in San Diego. 

Martinez will be the last to do his public presentation this Friday at 9:30 a.m. in Morgridge Hall room 7650. The search committee is asking anyone who has feedback on the three candidates to submit it to their feedback forms by this Sunday, March 1.

---