Community to welcome new president with receptions in Point Pleasant and South Charleston

The Marshall University community in the Point Pleasant and South Charleston areas will welcome President Jerome A. “Jerry” Gilbert with receptions later this month. Both receptions will run from 5 to 6 p.m. and are open to all Marshall students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends.

The first reception will be held on Monday, Feb. 8, at the university’s Mid-Ohio Valley Center, 1 John Marshall Way, Point Pleasant. Then, on Monday, Feb. 22, there will be a reception at the South Charleston location, 100 Angus E. Peyton Dr., South Charleston.

Gilbert was named the 37th president of Marshall University on Oct. 20, 2015. He assumed the presidency on Jan. 16.

A Mississippi native with a background in biomedical engineering, Gilbert previously served for nearly six years as provost and executive vice president of Mississippi State University. Before that, he was the university’s associate provost and associate vice president for academic affairs for six years. Earlier roles include head of the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering and coordinator for the biomedical engineering graduate program in the Bagley College of Engineering.

Gilbert attained the rank of professor in 1993 after joining the Mississippi State faculty in 1988 as associate professor. From 1989-2005, he also served as adjunct clinical assistant professor of orthopaedic surgery (research) for the University of Mississippi Medical Center. He served for 10 years as a research affiliate with the Institute of Neurocognitive Science and Technology at Mississippi State, and was among the first class of Mississippi State’s honors faculty in the Shackouls Honors College.

He was a graduate assistant at Duke University and held previous academic appointments at North Carolina State University and University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) School of Medicine.

In 2014, he was elected to the inaugural board of directors of the Association of Chief Academic Officers. A member of the College of Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, he also was inducted in the inaugural class of Fellows of the Institute of Biological Engineering, an organization for which he served as president in 2005.

He has a bachelor’s degree in biological engineering from Mississippi State and a doctorate in biomedical engineering from Duke.

A reception for Gilbert and his wife, Leigh, was held on the Huntington campus in early December.