Dr. Sian Leah Beilock is the 19th president in the Wheelock succession. She is the first woman to have been elected president of Dartmouth by the Board of Trustees and began her tenure on June 12, 2023.

Since her arrival, President Beilock has raised Dartmouth’s profile as a global leader on critical issues including freedom of speech; affordability for middle-income families; cold weather climate and the energy transition; and student mental health and well-being, led by the launch of the community-wide Commitment to Care plan.    

President Beilock has also spearheaded the launch of Dartmouth Dialogues, a groundbreaking initiative in higher education that fosters a culture of inquiry and respect by building the skills that students, faculty, and staff need to engage across differences—an essential element in training future leaders. In its first year, more than 15,000 community members participated in a Dialogues event or training, our faculty studied related topics like polarization, and the program’s efforts were lauded nationally by leaders across the political spectrum.

In 2024, President Beilock also led the institution’s adoption of a first-of-its-kind policy of “institutional restraint”: formalizing a commitment that Dartmouth leadership and academic departments will refrain from taking political positions so that debate among individual students and faculty can flourish.

A distinguished cognitive scientist, President Beilock is one of the world’s foremost experts on performance under pressure, receiving the 2017 Troland Award from the National Academy of Sciences. She is also a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine.  

She has worked closely with Fortune 500 companies, professional sports teams, and public sector leaders to build high-performing teams and create environments that attract, retain, and get the best out of their talent.

President Beilock has authored 120 peer-reviewed papers, as well as two critically-acclaimed books—Choke and How the Body Knows Its Mind—that have been published in more than a dozen languages. Her 2017 TED Talk on performing under pressure has been viewed nearly 3 million times.

Previously, President Beilock served as President of Barnard College at Columbia University and Executive Vice Provost at the University of Chicago, where she was also the Stella M. Rowley Professor of Psychology.

President Beilock earned her bachelor of science in cognitive science from the University of California, San Diego, and doctorate degrees in psychology and kinesiology from Michigan State University.