Nikos Varelas
Nikos Varelas is the Senior Vice Provost for Academic Programs, Student Success, and Effectiveness and Liberal Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of Physics at the University of Illinois Chicago. In this role, he works directly with the Provost and Chancellor to provide leadership across a broad spectrum of academic domains, including student success initiatives and research, academic advising, academic program development, assessment, undergraduate research, accreditation, summer programming, and transfer pathways.
Previously, Dr. Varelas served as Vice Provost for Academic Programs and Effectiveness (2022-2024) and Vice Provost for Undergraduate Affairs and Academic Programs (2016-2022) where he spearheaded and advanced a series of innovative, campuswide initiatives that significantly improved student achievement and success, including a 46% increase in the four-year graduation rate from 2015 to 2025. He also serves as UIC’s Higher Learning Commission Accreditation Liaison Officer.
Prior to his Vice Provost appointments, Dr. Varelas was Associate Dean for Student Academic Affairs in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, where he led innovative student success initiatives, advanced curricular reforms, and oversaw the development of one bachelor’s program, one master’s program, four new minors, one concentration, and revisions to more than a dozen degree programs.
Dr. Varelas has been collaborating with a broad range of partners at the state and national levels, including community-based organizations, Illinois Board of Higher Education, APLU, Excelencia in Education, UERU, and the University Innovation Alliance. He currently serves as the Past President of the Association for Undergraduate Education at Research Universities (UERU) and a member of the Board of Directors for Noble Schools in Chicago.
Dr. Varelas’ research is in the field of high-energy particle physics exploring the fundamental constituents of the universe and their interactions. He was a member of the team of scientists who discovered the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, Switzerland in 2012. He has held several leadership positions in his field, including co-spokesperson of the Coordinated Theoretical-Experimental Project on QCD Collaboration, member of the Executive Committee of the American Physical Society’s Division of Particles and Fields, Chair of the Fermilab Users Executive Committee, and Senior Fellow of the LHC Physics Center at Fermilab. His publication record exceeds 2,000 peer-reviewed journal articles. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a University of Illinois Scholar. Dr. Varelas earned his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Rochester and his B.S. in Physics from the University of Athens, Greece.
