As the first Asian American to lead a CUNY college, Dr. Wu brings to Baruch a track record of bold and visionary higher education leadership. Wu’s aim at Baruch College is to challenge higher education isomorphism—the gravitational pull toward status quo and stagnation, rather than change and innovation—and expand Baruch’s national reach.  

From 2014 until his appointment at Baruch, he served as provost and executive vice president of George Mason University. Under his leadership, Virginia’s largest public research university experienced historic growth in innovative academic programs, embraced multi-disciplinary collaboration, and increased student diversity and academic outcomes. Mason also emerged as a top-tier national research institution-the youngest university to earn Carnegie research-one (R1) designation.  

For more than a decade prior to Mason, Wu was dean and Iacocca Professor of the Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science at Lehigh University where he had been a member of the faculty since 1987. He was also a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He has served as a long-term member of the board of Dartmouth College’s Thayer School of Engineering in addition to various national and international panels and advisory boards, including with the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Science Foundation of Ireland, the Research Grant Council of Hong Kong, and the Science & Engineering Research Council of Singapore.  

Wu holds MS and PhD degrees from Pennsylvania State University.