On Sept. 1, 2019, Ángel Cabrera became the 12th president of the Georgia Institute of Technology. Cabrera came to Georgia Tech after serving for seven years as president of George Mason University (GMU) in Fairfax, Virginia.
A top-10 public research university in the U.S., Georgia Tech has outstanding programs in business, computing, design, engineering, liberal arts, and the sciences. With 35,000 students and 167,000 living alumni who work in business, industry, and government throughout the world, Georgia Tech has become internationally recognized for the quality of its educational and research programs.
George Mason is the largest and fastest-growing public university in Virginia. Under his leadership, the university accounted for more than half of all enrollment growth in Virginia, increased student outcomes, and joined the top tier of research universities in the Carnegie Classification. The university established partnerships to expand online programs and international recruitment and built several new facilities. Philanthropic contributions more than doubled. In 2018, it was named by Forbes as one of America’s best midsize employers.
From 2004 to 2012, Cabrera served as president at Thunderbird School of Global Management, now part of Arizona State University. Prior to that he was dean of IE Business School in Madrid. As a business educator, Cabrera has played a key role in advancing professional ethics, internationalization, and corporate social responsibility. As a senior advisor to the United Nations Global Compact, in 2007 he was the lead author of the “Principles for Responsible Management Education,” now adopted by more than 700 schools around the world.
Cabrera’s research has been published in leading academic journals. He has been quoted by leading global media, including The Economist, BBC, CNN, CNBC, El País, Forbes, The International Herald Tribune, and The New York Times. His op-eds have been published by The Washington Post and the international press, and he has appeared on NPR programs and PBS NewsHour.
He’s been named a “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum, a “Star of Europe” by Businessweek, “Henry Crown Fellow” by the Aspen Institute, and “Great Immigrant” by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. He has received honorary degrees from Miami Dade College and Universidad Politécnica of Madrid.
Cabrera serves on the boards of the National Geographic Society, the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond (where he chairs the Federal Reserve System National IT Committee), the Bankinter Foundation for Innovation, and Inovio, a publicly traded biotech company. For most of the past decade, he has served on the Georgia Tech Advisory Board, including a stint as its chair.
Cabrera earned his M.S. and Ph.D. in cognitive psychology from Georgia Tech, which he attended as a Fulbright Scholar. He also holds a telecommunications engineering degree (B.S. and M.S. in computer and electrical engineering) from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.
He is married to management scholar and Georgia Tech classmate Elizabeth. Their son Alex is a recent Georgia Tech graduate and currently a Ph.D. student at Carnegie Mellon University. Their daughter Emilia is a rising junior at Harvard University. Cabrera is the first native of Spain to serve as president of an American university.