José Herrera, Ph.D.

As Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, Herrera works closely with vice presidents and other senior administrators to improve student success. Through 12 direct reports, he oversees a $100 million Academic budget while collaborating with over 400 full-time and nearly 200 part-time faculty and several hundred staff.

During his first four years at the University of Northern Iowa (UNI), he has collaboratively worked with many faculty, staff and students to develop a new School of Health and Human Sciences that includes a new nursing program and a newly reorganized engineering program within the Department of Applied Engineering. Overall, and despite regional headwinds, UNI's enrollment has increased for three consecutive years.

As a microbiologist, professor, and administrator with decades of experience in academic and scientific leadership roles, Herrera has held a variety of increasingly complex leadership roles at institutions where he has successfully served students, faculty and staff in an ever-changing educational landscape.

In July 2021, Herrera was named Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs at UNI. Prior to his appointment, he served as Mercy University’s Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs (since January 2017) and the founding Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs at Western New Mexico University. 

He served as an NSF Program Director within the Division of Undergraduate Education (DUE) from 2011 until 2013. In this position, Herrera oversaw a diverse portfolio of innovative scientific programs to develop scientific and educational capital at various institutions across the United States.

Herrera attended Northern Illinois University where he majored in biology and minored in chemistry, graduating magna cum laude in 1988 before completing a master’s degree in biology.  

He earned his doctorate in microbiology at Kansas State University in 1996, then worked in the biology department at Truman State University where he served as chair of the department from 2009 until 2011.

During his career, Herrera has collaborated with many undergraduate students, publishing several scientific articles characterizing the microbial community structure and function of root-associated fungal endophytes. He has served as a principal investigator on several NSF-funded research and educational projects, as well as serving as a Program Director of a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Inclusive Excellence award. In 2017, he was elected chair of the 2019 Gordon Research Conference on Undergraduate Biology Education Research in Lewistown, ME.