Ricardo Azziz is an educator-scientist-physician-executive with over 20 years of leadership experience in higher education, research, and academic healthcare. Dr. Azziz is an internationally recognized leader in academic health and clinical & translational science. He is also a recognized authority in mergers and other major organizational changes in higher education. He is a passionate long-term champion for faculty and leadership development, and enhanced diversity and inclusion, in academics.

In addition to serving as Fellow of the Rockefeller Institute for Government, Dr. Azziz is on the faculties of the University at Albany, SUNY, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and UCLA. He serves as CEO of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, the largest international non-profit dedicated to furthering education, research and discovery in the field of reproductive sciences.

Previously he served as Chief Officer of Academic Health and Hospital Affairs for the State University of New York (SUNY) system administration, providing support, strategic oversight, guidance, and advocacy for the educational, research and clinical programs within the SUNY academic health and health professions portfolio. He also served as founding Director of the SUNY Hispanic Leadership Institute. Dr. Azziz previously also served as founding President of Georgia Regents University (GRU, now Augusta University), one of four comprehensive public research universities in Georgia, and founding CEO of the Georgia Regents Health System (GRHS, now Augusta University Health System). He also served as president of the Georgia Health Sciences University (GHSU) and was tasked then with creating the state’s only public academic health center, now including GRHS, and was subsequently tapped to lead the successful merger of GHSU and Augusta State University to create GRU.