Meet the Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs

Jason Geary, Ph.D., is Rutgers–New Brunswick's provost and executive vice chancellor for academic affairs, a role he assumed in July 2025. As the campus's chief academic officer, Geary works to advance the university's mission of teaching, research, and service by leading strategic initiatives in fulfillment of the Academic Master Plan. Working closely with and reporting to the chancellor, he provides direction to the Rutgers–New Brunswick schools and colleges and oversees the work of the vice provosts. He is also charged with fostering innovative curriculum development, supporting faculty advancement and mentoring, enhancing research infrastructure and support, and ensuring student success and broad accessibility to a Rutgers–New Brunswick education.

Prior to becoming provost, Geary served as dean of Mason Gross School of the Arts and later in his tenure was appointed senior vice provost for academic initiatives. As dean, he launched several interdisciplinary collaborations, including a minor in creative expression and the environment with the School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences and a minor in arts management and leadership with the Rutgers Business School. 

He also established an arts in health initiative aimed at highlighting the benefit of the arts for health and wellness. Among these efforts were the creation of an Arts in Health Research Lab in collaboration with the Rutgers School of Public Health and the New Jersey Performing Arts Center as well as the launch of Scarlet Arts Rx, a program in partnership with the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology aimed at providing Rutgers–New Brunswick undergraduates increased access to the arts as a means of improving mental health. Such efforts ultimately led to an $8.8 million gift for Mason Gross—the largest in the school’s history—to endow an arts in health chair.

As dean, Geary also enhanced student success with a focus on career development and alumni engagement, deepened ties with the community through partnerships including with the New Brunswick Public Schools, and led efforts to increase equity and access.

Before joining Rutgers in 2020, Geary served as Director of the School of Music at the University of Maryland and, prior to that, taught musicology for twelve years at the University of Michigan, where he also rose to become an associate dean for graduate studies in the School of Music, Theatre & Dance.

An esteemed musicologist, Geary holds the rank of distinguished professor and has published widely on nineteenth-century German music, with a focus on how perceptions of ancient Greece influenced German culture, identity, and politics. His most recent book, Musical Meaning and Interpretation: Perspectives, Reflections, Critique (Oxford University Press, 2025) is a co-edited volume that explores the philosophical and cultural underpinnings of how humans ascribe meaning to music. He has also been the recipient of several prestigious fellowships, among them a Fulbright grant and membership in the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. A leading advocate for the arts in higher education, he has served in national board roles for the Alliance for the Arts at Research Universities (a2ru) and the American Musicological Society.

Geary earned his Ph.D. from Yale University and a master's degree from the University of Michigan, both in musicology, and completed his undergraduate degree in piano performance at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.