Katherine Newman joined the University of California in January 2023 as systemwide Provost and Executive Vice President of Academic Affairs and Chancellor’s Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Public Policy at UC Berkeley. She received her Ph.D. in Anthropology at UC Berkeley and her B.A. in Philosophy and Sociology from UC San Diego. Provost Newman has held leadership and academic appointments at Princeton, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, UMass Amherst, Columbia University, and the School of Law at UC Berkeley.

Provost Newman is the author of fifteen books on topics ranging from technical education and apprenticeship to the sociological study of the working poor in America’s urban centers; on middle class economic insecurity under the brunt of recession; and on aspects of inequality, social policy and family life in Japan, Western Europe, South Africa and India. Her most recent book, Moving the Needle: What Tight Labor Markets Do for the Poor (co-authored with Dr. Elisabeth Jacobs), was released by UC Press in April 2023.