Noah Pickus is Associate Provost at Duke University, with responsibilities in academic strategy, global initiatives, educational innovation, and policy engagement. A faculty member at Duke for 25 years, he also serves as Senior Advisor for Academic Strategy and Learning Innovation at Duke Kunshan University, where he previously led curriculum design and faculty hiring.
At Duke, he co-authored the university’s academic strategic plan and, as the Nannerl O. Keohane Director of the Kenan Institute for Ethics, he led a signature university-wide interdisciplinary program for ten years.
Pickus has also served as Chief Academic Officer for Minerva Project, which designs and develops top-tier educational programs for new and established universities. As Founding Director of the Institute for Emerging Issues under former Governor James B. Hunt Jr. at NC State University, he established a university-based venture in shaping public debate and public policy. He has also served as Co-Director of the Arizona State University-Georgetown University Academy for Innovation in Higher Education Leadership Intensive Program and as Co-Director of the Brookings-Duke Immigration Roundtable.
Formerly a faculty member at Middlebury College and an American Council on Education Fellow at Franklin & Marshall College, his new book Global Start Up U: Stories from 21st Century Colleges and Universities is forthcoming from Princeton University Press. His previous books focused on immigration and citizenship, and he has written widely on innovation and globalization in higher education. He received a bachelor’s degree from the College of Social Studies at Wesleyan University and a doctorate in politics from Princeton University.