HANOVER - Dartmouth College has named Philip J. Hanlon, Ph.D., a member of the class of 1977, as its 18th president.

Hanlon, 57, serves as provost and executive vice president for academic affairs at the University of Michigan, where he is also the Donald J. Lewis Professor of Mathematics.

Hanlon will take office on July 1, 2013, and succeeds Jim Yong Kim, who was selected to serve as president of the World Bank in April this year. Carol L. Folt, the Dartmouth Professor of Biological Sciences, will continue to serve as interim president through June 30, 2013, when she will resume her role as provost. On Jan. 11, Dartmouth will hold a welcome celebration on campus for Hanlon.

Announcing Hanlon's unanimous election by the trustees, Board Chair Steve Mandel '78 said, "Along with my fellow trustees, I am delighted to welcome Phil home to his alma mater. All of us are inspired by the exceptional qualities he will bring to the presidency as a world-class academic, an accomplished administrative leader, and a passionate scholar-teacher."

A press release by the college this afternoon said Hanlon earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Dartmouth, from which he graduated Phi Beta Kappa, and was awarded a doctorate from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 1981. A University of Michigan faculty member since 1986, he has held administrative leadership positions for more than a decade. Appointed provost in 2010, he is the chief academic officer and chief budgetary officer of the university and is responsible for sustaining its academic excellence in teaching, research, and creative endeavors. The university has 95 departments ranked in the top 10 nationally and has $1.27 billion in annual research spending, second among all universities.

As a mathematician, Hanlon focuses on probability and combinatorics, the study of finite structures and their significance as they relate to bioinformatics, computer science, and other fields. He is an expert on topics such as computational genetics and cryptology and built a world-class combinatorics group at Michigan that consistently ranks among the top five in the nation. He continues to teach first-year calculus at Michigan.