Less than a week after its last president resigned under controversy, Ohio State University will appoint a new permanent leader, a university source confirmed.
Ravi Bellamkonda, who currently serves as Ohio State’s executive vice president and provost, will take over as the university’s 18th president beginning March 12.
Ravi V. Bellamkonda serves as the executive vice president and provost of The Ohio State University.
Ohio State’s Board of Trustees planned to meet at 9 a.m. March 12 at the Longaberger Alumni House to announce the personnel action. Trustees met in the same room a week ago to the day for its last full public board meeting with former President Ted Carter.
After just over two years at the helm, Carter resigned from the presidency over the weekend after admitting to Ohio State’s Board of Trustees he had an inappropriate relationship with “someone seeking public resources to support her personal business,” according to a university statement. An unnamed tipster came to the trustees sometime after last week’s board meeting, which led to trustees calling a rare three-hour executive session on March 7. Carter confirmed the relationship and offered to resign, according to university spokesperson Ben Johnson.
Bellamkonda officially started his tenure as provost in January 2025. Carter spent nearly a year searching for a permanent provost, calling it “the most important hire I’m making.”
Between his background as a bioengineer and neuroscientist, his experience teaching and leading at both private and public universities, and having come into the role at Ohio State as a sitting provost, Carter previously told The Dispatch that Bellamkonda was everything he was looking for.
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As Ohio State’s provost, Bellamkonda oversaw the university’s portfolio of programs and initiatives in the Office of Academic Affairs that supports faculty and student success across its six campuses. The deans of all 15 academic colleges and university libraries report to the provost, who also serves as a member of the president’s cabinet.
Bellamkonda moved to the United States from India to pursue a master’s program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the mid-1990s, traveling 8,000 miles away from home for higher education.
He got his start in academia in Ohio. After graduating from Brown University with his PhD in medical science and biomaterials, Bellamkonda moved to Northeast Ohio to begin his professional career at Case Western Reserve University, serving as an assistant and associate professor, as well as associate chair for graduate education.
He later served as the Wallace H. Coulter Professor and chair of the department of biomedical engineering, and associate vice president for research at Georgia Institute of Technology & Emory School of Medicine. Bellamkonda worked at Duke University for several years as the Vinik Dean of Engineering before returning to Georgia as Emory’s provost.
Bellamkonda launched and led several major initiatives in his time at Emory, including faculty recruitment and retention efforts focused on arts and humanistic inquiry, as well as artificial intelligence across areas such as medicine, business and law.
He is currently overseeing Ohio State’s new AI Fluency initiative.
Higher education reporter Sheridan Hendrix can be reached at shendrix@dispatch.com and on Signal at @sheridan.120. You can follow her on Instagram at @sheridanwrites.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ravi Bellamkonda will replace Ted Carter as Ohio State president
