Eric M. Wilcots is the dean of the College of Letters & Science, having been named to the position after serving as interim dean from August 2019-May 2020. He serves as the chief academic and executive officer of the college, with responsibility for its instructional, research and outreach environment, including oversight of its $356 million budget, faculty recruitment and retention, advancement and external relations, student academic affairs, and climate.
Prior to assuming the role, Wilcots served as deputy dean, charged with overseeing the college’s efforts on a wide range of initiatives, including inclusivity/diversity, undergraduate education enhancement, research initiatives and research services. He is also the Mary C. Jacoby Professor in the Department of Astronomy, a department he joined in 1995 and chaired from 2005-2008.
From 2008-2018, Wilcots served as the College of Letters & Science’s associate dean for natural sciences, where he was responsible for administrative oversight of 11 academic departments in the mathematical, physical, and biological sciences.
Wilcots’s research focuses on the evolution and environment of galaxies and groups in which they reside through the lens of radio wavelengths. Prior to moving to Madison, he was a Karl Jansky Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Socorro, New Mexico, and he continues that line of research through the UW’s involvement in the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) project, the largest single-aperture optical telescope in the southern hemisphere.
In addition to his academic research and classroom work – he’s won two teaching awards during his time at UW, including the Chancellor’s Inclusive Excellence Teaching Award – Wilcots is dedicated to promoting outreach and the Wisconsin Idea. He’s the current co-chair of the statewide steering committee for the Wisconsin Science Festival, has led the Universe in the Park outreach program and was instrumental in the Origins Project, an award-winning, UW-created multimedia effort to explain and contextualize the SALT project and UW’s broader scientific collaboration with South Africa. Wilcots received his undergraduate degree in astrophysical sciences from Princeton University and his Ph.D. in Astronomy from the University of Washington.
