Leadership Appointment in the Office of the Provost
Provost Patricia Prelock sent the following message to all employees in units reporting to the Office of the Provost on Sept. 11, 2025. The message is also available on the Office of the Provost website.
Dear colleagues,
I am pleased to announce a leadership appointment that will strengthen the foundation of our academic operations as we continue to create a more cohesive experience and improve support for students, faculty, and staff at the University of Arizona.
Jennifer Rickus
Effective Sept. 29, Jenna Rickus will join the U of A as Senior Vice Provost, reporting directly to me. In this newly created role, Dr. Rickus will facilitate collaboration and coordination among Academic Affairs, Campus Community Connections, Faculty Affairs, University Analytics and Institutional Research (UAIR), and the University Center for Assessment, Teaching, and Technology (UCATT). The addition of Dr. Rickus will give these critical areas the focused attention they require to deliver on our promise for student success and academic excellence. The Senior Vice Provost will coordinate initiatives and alignment across these areas.
The campus community met Dr. Rickus last spring during the interviews and an open forum as part of the Provost search process, where she emerged as a strong candidate for the position. Dr. Rickus will bring a collaborative leadership style and deep interdisciplinary expertise to our leadership team. In her role, she will provide strategic guidance, foster stronger communication pathways, and champion innovation initiatives. Dr. Rickus will empower our unit leaders to align their efforts more effectively and enhance coordination across key areas, amplifying our collective impact in serving students, faculty, and staff throughout the university.
Dr. Rickus joins us from Purdue University, where she most recently served as Senior Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning. In that role, she provided strategic leadership for undergraduate education, academic affairs, and student success initiatives. Her work at Purdue was instrumental in transforming the student learning experience and strengthening academic programs and classroom teaching across the institution.
She is a bioengineer and interdisciplinary scholar specializing in biofunctional materials and biosensors, with degrees from Purdue University and a Ph.D. in Neuroscience and NeuroEngineering from University of California, Los Angeles. Her research centers on engineered biomaterials for sensing and interacting with living cells and tissues, particularly in the brain and pancreas. Dr. Rickus co-founded a collaborative Physiological Sensing Facility to develop new technologies with applications in cell physiology, implantable therapeutics, and integrated sensing platforms. Her work addresses critical challenges including brain cancer, diabetes, foodborne illness, and space biology and has been supported by major agencies including the NIH, NSF, NASA, and DARPA.
Beyond research, Dr. Rickus is deeply committed to higher education, having developed impactful academic programs and received numerous awards for teaching, mentoring, and research leadership, with more than $112 million in funded grants to date.
The faculty recruitment committee in Biomedical Engineering in the U of A College of Engineering unanimously agreed that Dr. Rickus meets the requirement for an underlying appointment as a tenured full professor in their department.
Please join me in welcoming Dr. Rickus to our Wildcat community. I look forward to the many contributions she will make in this important role, and I am confident that together, our expanded team will drive meaningful progress in advancing academic excellence and cultivating a dynamic, student-centered campus environment.