Office of the Provost

As the chief academic officer of NYU Abu Dhabi, the Provost is entrusted with a wide range of responsibilities. These include overseeing the institution's academic, research, and scholarly programs and policies, academic appointments, and faculty affairs. The Provost oversees the divisional deans, directs the academic leadership team, and maintains a close working relationship with the faculty and administration. The Provost's role is crucial in ensuring the effective stewardship of the resources allocated to support the academic enterprise.

Prior to Marta’s appointment as interim Provost, she served as the Associate Vice Chancellor for Global Research, Senior Vice Provost for Research, Professor of Physics at New York University Abu Dhabi, and Global Network Professor of Physics, Faculty of the Arts and Sciences, NYU from 2025-2026. Marta also served as Dean of Science at NYUAD from 2019 to 2024.

Specializing in high-energy particle physics, she received her undergraduate degree and an MSc in Physics from the National University of Colombia, and a PhD in Physics from Rutgers University in the United States. From 1997-1999, she was a postdoctoral fellow at CERN (The European Organization for Nuclear Research) in Switzerland. Prior to joining NYUAD, Marta served as President of Universidad Antonio Nariño (UAN) in Colombia from 2010 to 2018 and previously served as National Director for Research and Director of the Basic and Applied Science Research Center, also at UAN.

She has been the principal investigator of numerous research projects, focusing on elementary particle phenomenology, cosmology, and experimental high-energy physics, and a member of multiple international collaborations, including the ATLAS, DUNE, and NEXT Experiments, and was also PI for the UAN node of the European-funded networks HELEN, Invisibles, Invisibles Plus, and Elusives. She has been a member of the Scientific Committee of the Latin American Symposium on High-Energy Physics and of the CERN-Latin America School of High-Energy Physics, and was elected to the Colombian Academy of Sciences.

In addition to her research, Marta is passionate about higher education and research policy and has held numerous positions in the field. She served as Commissioner of the CONACES Engineering, Architecture, Mathematics, and Physical Sciences section of the Colombian Ministry of Education and Research Policy from 2006 to 2009. She was the Chair of the Preparatory Group of the Latin American Strategy for HECAP until 2021. In addition, Marta has served on the steering committee for the first UNICA-IAU Masterclass on Internationalization, on the review group for the Magna Charta Universitatum 2018-2020, and on the Global Attainment and Inclusion Network.

Marta has served as an International Councilor and Board Member of the American Physical Society and as a Board Member of the International Association of Universities; she has been a scientific consultant for the Abdus Salam International Center for Theoretical Physics. Most recently, she was appointed to the Governing Council of the Magna Charta Observatory.

Academic Leadership Team