Radenka Maric

Radenka Maric was named the 17th president of the University of Connecticut by the Board of Trustees on September 28, 2022. She had served as UConn’s vice president for research, innovation, and entrepreneurship since 2017. As president, she is responsible for Connecticut’s $1.5 billion public flagship university with five campuses, more than 30,000 students, and an extensive network of research and service endeavors. Maric also holds the rank of Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor at the University of Connecticut, where she oversees the university’s $375 million research enterprise at the main campus in Storrs, the UConn Health campus in Farmington, the School of Law in Hartford, and four regional campuses around the state. Previously, Maric served as the inaugural executive director of UConn’s $132 million Innovation Partnership Building, which houses state-of-the-art specialized equipment and research centers of excellence and serves as a nexus for industry-academic partnerships.

Maric is the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund Professor of Sustainable Energy in the University of Connecticut’s Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and Department of Materials Science and Engineering. She brings her technical background in materials and energy to create, manage and lead innovative programs designed to commercialize new products and develop emerging markets that utilize advanced materials. She has expertise in integrating emerging market needs with technology capabilities to define vision and strategies of scientific organizations, building and leading diverse teams, prioritizing programs for market development and commercialization, and managing diverse scientific and engineering project portfolios.

Maric has led and continues to drive strategic efforts to build fundamental and applied research and technology commercialization capabilities in partnership with government, industry and other academic leaders. She has firsthand experience transitioning academic discoveries into real-world products as the founder and chief technology officer of a biotech startup housed in UConn’s Technology Incubation Program. Her research interests include fundamental understanding of the effect of structure, defects and microstructure on transport and electrical properties of surfaces and interfaces. She is interested in developing novel materials for fuel cell, batteries and biosensors, durability study, performance and life prognosis.

Maric has received numerous awards for innovation and leadership development in Japan, Canada and the United States. She is an elected member of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She has an extensive and diverse funding portfolio including grants from multiple federal agencies and contracts with both domestic and international industry partners.

Maric earned her BS from Belgrade University, and her MS and PhD from Kyoto University.