NEW YORK — Pace University, a private university with campuses in New York City and Westchester County, has named Robert “Bobby” Ahdieh the university’s ninth president, effective January 1, 2027.
Ahdieh [pictured], a global legal scholar as well as a fierce and innovative believer in the power of higher education to transform lives, has been unanimously elected by the Board of Trustees, following a comprehensive and inclusive search process.
He succeeds President Marvin Krislov, who is leaving Pace after nearly a decade to become the new President of Bard College.
Ahdieh joins Pace from Texas A&M University, where he served simultaneously as Dean and Anthony G. Buzbee Endowed Dean’s Chair of Texas A&M University School of Law, Vice President for Professional Schools and Programs at Texas A&M University, and Chief Operating Officer of Texas A&M–Fort Worth.
“Bobby Ahdieh is exactly the kind of innovative leader that Pace University needs and deserves during an exciting moment of transformation,” said Robert S. Sands, Chairman of the Pace Board of Trustees. “He is a bold institution-builder who has demonstrated time and again the rare ability to elevate academic quality, expand access, and drive transformational growth. He shares our deep belief that education is a powerful engine of social mobility and life-changing opportunity. Bobby will lead Pace forward with vision, energy, and an unwavering commitment to the students and communities we serve. I express my deepest gratitude to the members of our Presidential Search Committee, who contributed countless hours to this process, in pursuit of the right leader for Pace’s future.”
Since becoming Dean of Texas A&M Law in 2018, Ahdieh led one of the most dramatic institutional transformations in the history of American legal education. Under his leadership, the school climbed from 83rd to 22nd in national rankings — the most significant rise of any law school in the past 25 years. Enrollment grew more than fourfold, from 458 to over 2,000 students, while post-graduate employment reached 100%, the highest rate in the United States, and bar passage climbed from 73% to nearly 100%. Annual fundraising quadrupled and the school’s budget moved from annual deficits to a revenue-positive position in under three years. And even as incoming academic metrics rose sharply, the racial and ethnic diversity of the student body nearly doubled as well.
Ahdieh’s impact extended beyond the law school. As Vice President for Professional Schools and Programs, he helped lead graduate enrollment growth across the entire university, including its colleges of Engineering, Medicine, Architecture, Education, Nursing, and Agriculture. As Chief Operating Officer of Texas A&M–Fort Worth, he conceived and spearheaded the development of a new $1 billion-plus innovation campus — a first-of-its-kind academic and industry hub integrating health sciences, engineering, business, law, and major private sector partners around research, workforce development, and student-to-employee pipelines.
Prior to Texas A&M, Ahdieh spent nearly two decades at Emory University School of Law, where he served as the K.H. Gyr Professor of Private International Law, Vice Dean, and Director of the Center on Federalism & Intersystemic Governance and helped guide the school to the highest student quality, diversity, and ranking achievements in its history.
Raised in New York City by parents who immigrated to the U.S. in pursuit of educational opportunities, Ahdieh returns home with a personal and professional commitment to ensuring those same opportunities are available to new generations of students.
“New York is where my family’s American dream began, and Pace’s motto – Opportunitas – resonates deeply with me,” said Ahdieh. “Higher education is at an inflection point, and those institutions that are willing to engage honestly with the moment, to lead with ambition, and to bring their communities along will be the ones that define what academia looks like for future generations. I cannot wait to work alongside Pace’s students, faculty, staff, and communities both in New York City and Westchester — who make the University what it is today — and together take it to even greater heights.”
Ahdieh holds an A.B. from the School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and a J.D. from Yale Law School. He began his career as a law clerk to Judge James R. Browning of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and subsequently served as a trial attorney in the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. A scholar as well as an administrator, his research spans financial regulation, corporate law, administrative law, and comparative and international law; he has held visiting professorships at Princeton, Columbia Law School, and Georgetown University Law Center.
