About President Wente

Dr. Susan R. Wente is Wake Forest University’s 14th president and a Distinguished University Professor of Biology and Biochemistry. 

Across her academic and administrative career, Dr. Wente has earned a reputation for thoughtful, future-oriented leadership that fosters institutional growth, academic excellence, and opportunity for all. She leads with trust, transparency, and teamwork as core values and believes the University’s motto calls Wake Forest to be a catalyst for good in society. 

Dr. Wente is leading Wake Forest toward its third century with strategic investments in the University’s priorities, including furthering academic excellence, increasing financial and merit aid, and enhancing the student experience. Dr. Wente works to highlight Wake Forest’s faculty academic distinctives through her Walk with Wente video series and by investing in efforts to share faculty expertise worldwide. The weaving together of teaching and scholarship is a core component of Wake Forest’s identity and instrumental to Dr. Wente’s vision for Wake Forest as a leading student-centered research university, dedicated to a liberal arts foundation. 

An example of progress toward this vision is the rising visibility of the Program for Leadership and Character, supported by the more than $65 million investment by the Lilly Endowment. A national challenge requires a national leader, and Wake Forest has stepped up under Dr. Wente’s leadership to educate character for the next generation of leaders catalyzing good in society. During Wente’s presidency, the Entrepreneurship Program secured the single largest gift to an academic unit in university history – $30 million. Also under Dr. Wente’s leadership, Wake Forest has launched new initiatives focused on affordability, including the For Humanity initiative, which has raised more than $150 million to support student financial aid. Wake Forest’s desirability continues to increase, with undergraduate applications and admissions selectivity at an all time high.

Dr. Wente is leading the most significant campus facility renewal effort since Wake Forest arrived in Winston-Salem in 1956. Recognizing Wake Forest’s cherished sense of place as core to its identity, she has initiated important projects to renew the Reynolda Campus academic core and more effectively leverage its real estate assets to serve the University’s academic and research missions. Since her arrival in July 2021, the university has committed nearly $10 million to upgrade academic and classroom spaces on the Reynolda Campus, including Wake Downtown; this includes transforming Alumni Hall into the new home for the departments of Education, Philosophy, and Computer Science, as well as the Entrepreneurship Program, and moving Wake Forest’s Center for Nanotechnology into new space. Under Dr. Wente’s leadership and in partnership with the City of Winston-Salem, the University launched The Grounds: a transformative 100-acre mixed-use development in the Deacon Boulevard area laying the foundation for a more sustainable, pedestrian-friendly and connected community hub and gathering place that honors Wake Forest’s responsibility for a mutually beneficial partnership with its hometown. Establishing a nearby childcare center was an early priority for Dr. Wente’s presidency. In 2024, after an inclusive process of planning and construction, Wake Forest opened Kindercare @ WFU, increasing the availability of quality child care and helping families in our community thrive both personally and professionally. 

Dr. Wente has also led Wake Forest in expanding its presence in Charlotte, launching the first degree programs in the School of Professional Studies in 2022, deepening the School of Business’ impact, and opening a second campus of the School of Medicine located in the Pearl Innovation District.

Following service as Vice Chair beginning in January 2024, Dr. Wente has served as the Chair of the Board of Directors for the Atlantic Coast Conference since July 2025, putting Wake Forest at the forefront in a changing landscape for college athletics. During her presidency, the Demon Deacons have won six ACC Championships and two NCAA Championships. The Demon Deacons baseball program secured a berth in the 2023 Men’s College World Series for the first time since 1955 and the football program has captured a pair of bowl championships and won the 2021 Atlantic Division title. Additionally, Wake Forest student-athletes continue to excel in the classroom. Wake Forest had 11 programs score a perfect 1,000 in the latest Yearly Academic Progress Rate report for 2023-24 and two programs earn perfect multi-year rates for the academic years since 2020. Dr. Wente has also overseen continued improvements to athletic facilities, including the new 60,000 square football locker room added to McCreary Football Complex in 2024.  

Dr. Wente has led University-wide efforts to reenvision how every individual  on our campuses thrive and flourish, to honor individuals from across the University’s complex history, and to strive for intentional development of leaders with character and integrity. Under Dr. Wente’s leadership, Wake Forest has also deepened its focus on academic freedom and freedom of expression. In September 2023, Dr. Wente charged the campus community to engage in an inclusive multiphase process to draft a new written statement on Academic Freedom and Free Expression, inspired by the university’s historical and cultural commitments. Since 2024, Dr. Wente has served on the Leadership Council for College Presidents for Civic Preparedness. 

Additionally, Dr. Wente continues to lead the campus in thoughtful, forward-looking approaches to sharing Wake Forest’s history. In 2022, she announced that four roads on the Reynolda Campus would be renamed in honor of four pioneering professors: Elizabeth Phillips, Dolly McPherson, Marjorie “Marge” Crisp and Herman Eure.  Most recently, Dr. Wente oversaw the change of South Residence Hall’s name to Hopkins Hall, to honor one of Wake Forest’s most distinguished, trailblazing families, the husband and wife team of Dr. Larry Hopkins (’72, MD ’77) and Beth Norbery Hopkins (’73). The Campus Memorialization Project, initiated in 2023, aims to honor and remember enslaved men and women who are a critical part of Wake Forest’s story. Wente also initiated the University’s first sexual misconduct campus climate assessment in 2022, and the first comprehensive campus climate survey in 2024, ensuring continual improvement in the campus living, learning and working environment.

Dr. Wente is an internationally renowned biomedical scientist who has maintained an unwavering commitment to research, teaching, and mentoring. She has published more than 100 research articles and mentored dozens of students and fellows. A pioneer of team-based, cross-disciplinary research, Dr. Wente’s cell biology discoveries have laid the foundation for understanding disease mechanisms and inspired her distinctive leadership philosophy. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation.  She currently serves on the Board of Directors for Advocate Health, the second largest not-for-profit hospital system in the nation, for which the Wake Forest University School of Medicine serves as the academic core. 

Dr. Wente arrived at Wake Forest in July 2021 after serving as Vanderbilt University’s Provost and interim Chancellor.