Nicholas S. Zeppos was named Vanderbilt University's eighth chancellor on March 1, 2008. A noted legal scholar, teacher and executive, he has focused Vanderbilt on its core missions of teaching and research and personally recruited a significant number of its world-class faculty.

Since 2002, Zeppos served as Vanderbilt's chief academic officer, overseeing the university's undergraduate, graduate, and professional education programs as well as research efforts in liberal arts and sciences, engineering, music, education, business, law, and divinity. As provost and vice chancellor, he chaired Vanderbilt's budgeting and capital planning council and led all fundraising and alumni relations efforts across the institution, as well as overseeing the dean of students and dean of admissions.

Zeppos has led a number of important initiatives at Vanderbilt, including the planning process for The Commons, a landmark transformation of the first-year experience; the Strategic Academic Planning Group; innovative efforts in undergraduate admissions and financial aid; and the development of new programs in Jewish studies, law and economics, and genetics, among others. He also has led the university's Shape the Future fund-raising campaign, which exceeded its $1.25 billion goal two years ahead of schedule and set a new target of $1.75 billion by 2010.

Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Zeppos is a 1979 magna cum laude graduate of the University of Wisconsin Law School, where he served as editor in chief of the Wisconsin Law Review and was selected the outstanding graduate of his class. Before that, he was a 1976 Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Wisconsin, where he studied history.

From 1982 to 1987, Zeppos practiced law in Washington, D.C., at the United States Department of Justice and at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, where he specialized in appellate litigation involving complex regulatory, statutory and constitutional matters. He has written widely on legislation, administrative law and professional responsibility and is a nationally recognized scholar in these fields. He served as chair for the scholars committee that advised the Senate and the American Bar Association on the confirmation of Justice Stephen Breyer to the U.S. Supreme Court, and as chair of the Rules Advisory Committee of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He has also served as a consultant to government agencies, major corporations and trade associations on complex litigation, policy design and strategy.

Zeppos joined the Vanderbilt community in 1987 as an assistant professor in the Law School, where he has been recognized with five teaching awards. He subsequently served as an associate dean and then as associate provost before being named provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs in 2002. He served as interim chancellor of the university from Aug. 1, 2007, until March 1, 2008, when he was appointed chancellor.

In the Nashville community, Zeppos serves on the boards of the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, the Nashville Alliance for Public Education and is a member of the United Way Campaign Cabinet.