Marye Anne Fox

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Marye Anne Fox (born 9 December 1947) is a physical organic chemist and university administrator. She was the first female chief executive of North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina. In April 2004, Fox was named Chancellor of the University of California, San Diego.

Fox is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and has served as president of the scientific research society Sigma Xi. Fox earned a B.S. in chemistry from Notre Dame College in 1969 and a Ph.D. from Dartmouth College in 1974. In 1976 she joined the faculty of the University of Texas at Austin, where she rose to direct the Center for Fast Kinetics Research and, in 1994, was appointed the university's Vice President for Research. Even as a university administrator, she maintained an active research program in the fields of organic photochemistry and electrochemistry.

She was appointed the 12th chancellor of North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina in August 1998, succeeding Dr. Larry K. Monteith. She was the university's first female chief executive, serving until July 2004. During her tenure as Chancellor, the UNC system and its Board of Governors successfully campaigned for a taxpayer-funded bond referendum leading to a significant period of growth of the physical facilities of the campus. Her tenure was also marked by controversy over excessive pay raises for members of her administration and the firing of two prominent vice provosts that led to the resignation of the provost and a formal censuring by the NC State faculty.

In June 2003, Fox played a role in the expansion of the Atlantic Coast Conference. Reached in Switzerland at a conference, she cast an unexpected and deciding "no" vote against Boston College in the first round of Atlantic Coast Conference expansion. [1] Her unanticipated vote at the 11th hour resulted in months of turmoil in college sports. Miami President Donna Shalala delayed her university's acceptance of the ACC invitation to the last possible day explaining "We had numbers on Boston College-Virginia Tech. We had done numbers on Miami alone. But we had not anticipated that Virginia Tech and Miami would be the only two invitees." [2] The ensuing delay forced the ACC to spend the 2004-5 academic year as an 11-team conference, one shy of the dozen required by the NCAA for the ACC to hold a lucrative championship football game, and resulted in Boston College playing a "lame duck" year in the Big East.[3] Media reports suggested Chancellor Fox, a University of Notre Dame trustee, may have cast her vote against Boston College to provide time for the ACC to consider extending membership to the Fighting Irish. [4]

In 2004, Fox accepted the position of Chancellor at the University of California, San Diego. In the same year, and in spite of the faculty's censure vote, the NCSU Board of Trustees named a building after her, the Marye Anne Fox Science Teaching Laboratory.

Fox has served beyond her roles in three universities. She has served within the U.S. Republican Party, having served as a science advisor to George W. Bush during his tenure as governor of Texas. She serves on President Bush's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and was on the short list of candidates to head the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in Bush's presidential administration.