Hilary Link

Hilary L. Link, Ph.D., nationally recognized as a visionary, dynamic and entrepreneurial leader in the education sector, became the 15th president of Drew University (Madison, NJ) in 2023. She is a multidisciplinary Renaissance scholar and globalist, fluent in multiple languages, and earned a B.A. with Distinction in Art History and Italian from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in Italian Language and Literature from Yale University. At Drew she has led a re-envisioning process to become a national model for the future of education and learning; created and opened a new college focusing on individualized, inquiry-based, applied learning driven by technology and powered by human mentoring; and bolstered the University’s finances through innovative reorganization and record fundraising.

Prior to Drew, Link served as the first female President of Allegheny College; as the Dean of Temple University Rome Campus; and as Vice Provost at Barnard College of Columbia University. Link is a member of the invitation-only International Women’s Forum (IWF) and co-founder of IWF’s Higher Education Special Interest Group.

She is an inaugural member of the Association of International Education Administrators (AIEA) Presidential Ambassadors Council and a member of the Board of Directors of the Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) and the Annapolis Group of Liberal Arts Colleges. Until July 2025 Link served on the Board of Directors of the data management and analytics company Affinaquest.

She and her husband Jeff have three sons (ages 23, 20, and 15) and reside on Drew’s beautiful campus.