Mariët Westermann, former executive vice president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, joined NYU Abu Dhabi as Vice Chancellor and Professor in August 2019. 

During her nine years at Mellon, Westermann oversaw the Foundation's annual grantmaking and research portfolio of more than $300 million. She re-envisioned the Foundation's strategy, launching initiatives that promote higher education, the humanities and the arts, strengthen liberal arts curricula and graduate education, reinforce community colleges, renew preservation of cultural heritage, and support scholars and artists at risk. From 2002 to 2010 she was at NYU, first as director of the Institute of Fine Arts in New York and then as the first provost of NYU Abu Dhabi, creating a startup team to set up the campus and recruit faculty and students. A widely published art historian, she began her professorial career at Rutgers University.

Mariët received her undergraduate degree, magna cum laude, from Williams College, and earned her Masters and PhD at NYU's Institute of Fine Arts.