Walter E. Massey

Who is Walter E. Massey?

Walter Eugene Massey is an educator, physicist, and business executive. He is the current President of The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the former Chairman of Bank of America, replacing Ken Lewis on April 29, 2009. He is also the former President of Morehouse College and the former Director of the National Science Foundation.

Massey was born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi in 1938 and graduated from Morehouse College in 1958 with a BS degree in Mathematics and Physics, and also became a member of the Psi chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity. Massey went on to receive his Ph.D. in Physics from Washington University in St. Louis in 1966.

Massey formerly served as Vice President for Research and Professor of Physics at the University of Chicago, Director of the Argonne National Laboratory, Dean of the College and Professor of Physics at Brown University, and Assistant Professor of Physics at the University of Illinois. He was also the Director of the National Science Foundation from 1991 to 1993, was the 9th President of Morehouse College from 1995 to 2007, and was the Senior Provost of the University of California System.

Massey serves or has served as a board member of several American corporations, including Bank of America, BP Oil, Motorola, and McDonalds. In 2007, Massey was elected Chairman of the Board of the Salzburg Global Seminar, an international policy center based in Salzburg, Austria, with offices in Washington, DC. Massey, who joined the Seminar Board in 1995, succeeded Roy M. Huffington as board chair. Massey also serves as a trustee of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.