Meet the Provost
Michael E. Steiper is a mission-driven academic leader dedicated to faculty and student success. Steiper comes to CSI following 19 years at Hunter College, where he had roles as a faculty member and administrator. Over his career, Steiper established an active research lab and teaching portfolio, helped recruit talented faculty, founded and led an innovative interdisciplinary academic program, transformed key aspects of Hunter’s student success enterprise, improved academic planning, and attracted considerable external funding to advance equity and inclusion. In addition, Steiper has played an integral role in Hunter’s assessment, accreditation, and institutional research processes. A first-generation college student, born and raised in New York, Steiper is thrilled to join CSI to serve our mission and support our faculty, staff, and students.
An anthropologist, Steiper has broad scholarly interests in human and primate genetics and evolution. Steiper’s findings have been published in venues including PNAS, Proceedings B, and the Journal of Human Evolution, often with students as co-authors. Steiper is appointed to the Graduate Center’s Program in Anthropology and was an Erasmus Mundus Scholar at Université Montpellier-2. More recently, Steiper has begun collaborating on research to boost equity in the undergraduate STEM pipeline. Steiper earned a bachelor’s degree at New York University and master’s and doctoral degrees at Harvard University.