Bolton named Whitman College president
By Terry Murry on Thursday, January 13th, 2022 in Columbia Basin News More Top Stories
WALLA WALLA – The Whitman College Board of Trustees has unanimously selected Sarah Bolton as its next president. Bolton, the sitting president of The College of Wooster, located in Wooster, Ohio, will succeed President Kathleen Murray, who is retiring after seven years of service to Whitman.
A respected physicist, scholar and administrator, Bolton brings more than 25 years of experience in higher education and a long-standing commitment to the liberal arts. Prior to her term as president of The College of Wooster, Bolton spent more than 20 years at Williams College in Massachusetts.
Bolton earned her bachelor’s degree in physics and biophysics from Brown University in Rhode Island, followed by a master’s degree as well as a doctorate in physics from the University of California, Berkeley. Her research explores the properties of novel, nanostructured materials and uses lasers to measure the ways that energy moves in quantum mechanical systems.
The recipient of multiple teaching awards and fellowships, Bolton has authored more than a dozen articles in science journals and been invited to present at conferences across the country. She joined the faculty at Williams College in Massachusetts in 1995 and was promoted to full professor in 2007, the first woman to reach this milestone in physics at Williams. She capped her decades at Williams College by serving as dean of the college.
She plans to move to Walla Walla with her husband this summer and will officially assume the presidency in July.
