Carlos E. Santiago, PhD

Commissioner
Massachusetts Department of Higher Education 

Carlos was appointed Commissioner of Higher Education on July 1, 2015, by the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education (BHE) and is the State Higher Education Executive Officer (SHEEO) for the Commonwealth.

The first Puerto Rican president of a major U.S. research university, Carlos previously served as the Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) and has also served as provost and vice president for academic affairs at the University at Albany, State University of New York (SUNY).

Carlos was a professor of economics at UWM and SUNY-Albany and holds a Ph.D. in economics from Cornell University. He is also the author or co-author of six books and has published dozens of articles. Carlos was recently selected to serve a term as the Chair of the Executive Committee of the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO); was named to the board of the Council of Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA); and named to the Advisory Committee of the Smithsonian Museum of African American Culture and History. In 1996 and 2011, Santiago has been named one of the 100 most influential Hispanics in the United States by Hispanic Business magazine.