Dr. Robert N. Shelton
Dr. Robert N. Shelton is the 19th president of The University of Arizona and began his appointment on July 1, 2006. He will lead The University of Arizona in its quest to advance its standing as one of the country's top public research universities. He will focus on continuing to enhance the overall quality of the University, while increasing diversity and ensuring that the UA is accessible to Arizona students, particularly first-generation college students. He embraces the University's land grant status, its commitment to the people of Arizona, and the important bond between the public and public research universities.
Dr. Shelton was educated at Stanford University (B.S., 1970) and the University of California at San Diego (M.S., 1973; Ph.D., 1975) and began his academic career at UCSD as an assistant research physicist in 1975. Moving to Iowa State University in 1978, he was promoted to associate professor in 1981 and professor in 1984. He returned to California as chair of the Department of Physics at UC-Davis in 1987 and served in that capacity until 1990, when he was named vice chancellor for research. In 1996, Dr. Shelton joined the President's Office at the University of California as vice provost for research. He comes to the UA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he was executive vice chancellor and provost for five years; the chief academic officer and chief operating officer; and was responsible for the conduct, coordination, and quality of the university's academic and research programs.
Dr. Shelton was a guest scientist at both the Kernforschungsanlage in Julich, Germany, and of the Japanese government at the Institute of Metals in Tokyo, Japan; and a visiting professor in the Département de Physique de la Matière Condensée, at the Université de Genève, Geneva, Switzerland. He has been an active and productive scientist whose work has focused on collective electron effects in novel materials.
Under Dr. Shelton’s leadership at The University of Arizona, a Transformation Initiative was established to respond to the growing economic crisis affecting Arizona universities as well as other institutions across the nation. He introduced Arizona Assurance, a program where Arizona residents making less than $42,400 can send their children to college and graduate with little or no debt. The funding of the program comes from donors to the Arizona Assurance program. Dr. Shelton and his wife of more than 40 years, Adrian A. Shelton, were undergraduates at Stanford. They have three adult children: Christian Shelton, an associate professor of Computer Science at UC Riverside; Cameron Shelton, an assistant professor of Economics at Claremont-McKenna College; and Stephanie Shelton Crossen, a pediatric resident at Oregon Health Sciences University.