Florida State University opened a new chapter in its history Monday as Richard McCullough began his tenure as the university’s 16th president.   

McCullough, who served as vice provost for research at Harvard University since 2012, succeeds John Thrasher, who held the post since 2014.  

As president, McCullough will look to build upon a string of successes that have bolstered Florida State’s national reputation. FSU, which ranks among the nation’s Top 20 public universities according to U.S. News & World Report, recently set a State University System of Florida record with a 74 percent four-year graduation rate, brought in record research funding and increased enrollment of underrepresented or ethnic minority students. 

The Florida Board of Governors unanimously confirmed McCullough’s selection in June after a months-long search.  

While at Harvard, McCullough oversaw the development and implementation of strategies and execution of research across the university’s schools and affiliated institutions. McCullough led an office of Foundation and Corporate Engagement and assisted in the oversight of more than 25 interdisciplinary institutes, centers and initiatives across the university.  

In addition, McCullough successfully built and launched the new Harvard Data Science Initiative, a collaboration between 12 of the university’s schools and more than 120 faculty, which has led to three new master’s programs and the creation of many new undergraduate courses. 

McCullough developed and launched a new Structural Biology Program and cryo-electron microscope facility that partners Harvard Medical School with three Boston-area hospitals. He also led the development for a new $100 million, multi-institution collaboration to build the Advanced Biological Innovation and Manufacturing Center and Facility, which will be a hub for workforce training, economic development, education and medical research for the region. He also served as professor of materials science and engineering. 

Before Harvard, McCullough spent 22 years at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, where he began his academic career as an assistant professor of chemistry in 1990 and became the Thomas Lord Professor of Chemistry in 2009. McCullough was promoted to Head of Chemistry in 1998 and then served as dean of the Mellon College of Science from 2001-2007 before becoming the university’s Vice President for Research. 

McCullough, a founder of two companies who holds multiple patents, has a rich background in entrepreneurship and innovation. At Carnegie Mellon he developed a vibrant innovation ecosystem, including the Greenlighting Start-ups Initiative that exponentially increased the generation of university spin-out companies and corporate engagement. In 2013, he was elected as a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. 

A staunch champion of diversity, McCullough created a diverse pipeline of Black/African American academics from both his research lab and as the founding creator of the Future Faculty Workshop: Diverse Leaders of Tomorrow, an annual workshop that helps diverse postdoctoral fellows and students obtain academic jobs. Now in its 15th year, the workshop has facilitated placing more than 50 underrepresented minority professors in the United States. 

McCullough is the author of numerous peer-reviewed articles and serves on the editorial boards of several academic journals. He has been an innovation, entrepreneurship and technology transfer adviser to Oxford University, Princeton University and Washington University at St. Louis. 

A first-generation student from Mesquite, Texas, McCullough attended Eastfield Community College before earning a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of Texas at Dallas in 1982 and a doctoral degree in organic chemistry from Johns Hopkins University in 1988. McCullough also spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University in New York. 

He and his wife, Jai Vartikar, have two children, Jason and Dylan.