John Karl Scholz

19th President, University of Oregon

John Karl Scholz was named the 19th president of the University of Oregon by the Board of Trustees on March 13, 2023, and will assume the role on July 1. 

Scholz is currently provost at University of Wisconsin-Madison, a position he has held since 2019. 

Prior to serving as provost, Scholz was the dean of the College of Letters & Science at UW-Madison from 2013 to 2019. He joined the university’s department of economics in 1988 and was later named the Nellie June Gray Professor of Economic Policy. He directed the Institute for Research on Poverty at UW–Madison from 2000-2004. 

He served in two presidential administrations, working in both the U.S. Treasury Department and the Council of Economic Advisors. From 1990 to 1991 he was a senior staff economist at the Council of Economic Advisors, and from 1997 to 1998 he served as deputy assistant secretary for tax analysis at the U.S. Treasury Department.  

Scholz writes on diverse topics including household saving, the earned income tax credit and low-wage labor markets, financial barriers to higher education, and bankruptcy laws. His research has appeared in leading economics journals, including The American Economic Review, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Political Economy, and the Review of Economic Studies. 

His undergraduate degree is from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, and his Ph.D. is from Stanford University.