Elliot Hirshman

Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs

Elliot Hirshman joined UMBC as Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs on July 1, 2008.  He also holds the rank of full professor in the Department of Psychology.

As Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, Dr. Hirshman is responsible for the delivery of the academic program, including instruction, research, and academic support services; enrollment management, including admissions and financial aid; and the intercollegiate athletics program.  He provides leadership as UMBC continues to build excellence among the faculty, student body, and academic affairs staff.  Dr. Hirshman oversees the campus planning process, working with Vice Presidents and the Planning Leadership Team to coordinate planning and budgeting for the campus.      

Prior to UMBC, Dr. Hirshman served as Chief Research Officer at George Washington University, in Washington, D.C.  Previously, he chaired the Departments of Psychology at George Washington (2002-05) and the University of Colorado at Denver (2000-02).  He began his academic career at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1989-2000), where he served as Assistant, Associate, and ultimately full Professor of Psychology.  

While at Chapel Hill, Dr. Hirshman was nominated for the American Council on Education Fellows Program, in which he participated as a Fellow in the Provost’s Office at Arizona State University.  Subsequently, he served as Special Assistant to the Provost at Chapel Hill.  He has chaired a number of major campus groups, including the University Task Force on Student Evaluation of Teaching at Chapel Hill and the Advisory Council on Research at George Washington.

Dr. Hirshman has a strong interdisciplinary background, having earned his undergraduate degree summa cum laude in economics and mathematics from Yale and his Ph.D. in cognitive psychology at UCLA.  His research and teaching focus on the psychopharmacology of human cognition, exploring cognitive and quantitative models of memory, attention and visual perception, and the influence of individual drugs on specific cognitive processes.  His interdisciplinary work involves collaboration among psychologists, medical doctors, and statisticians. 

A Fellow of the American Psychological Association, Dr. Hirshman has served as the Associate Editor of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognition (2000-2006) and Psychonomic Bulletin & Review (1998-2000).

(July 2008)