Dr. Joe DiPietro

Dr. Joe DiPietro became the 25th president of the University of Tennessee on January 1, 2011.

DiPietro is the chief executive officer of a statewide university system that includes the flagship campus in Knoxville, campuses in Chattanooga and Martin, the Health Science Center in Memphis, the Space Institute in Tullahoma, and statewide institutes of agriculture and public service.

DiPietro serves as a member of the University of Tennessee Board of Trustees, and he and the president of Battelle Memorial Institute rotate two-year terms as chairman of the Board of Governors of UT-Battelle, which has managed Oak Ridge National Laboratory for the Department of Energy since 2000.

Prior to becoming president, DiPietro served as chancellor of the UT Institute of Agriculture from 2006 to 2010.

In that role, DiPietro oversaw UT Extension, AgResearch, the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources and the College of Veterinary Medicine. During his tenure, the institute began interdisciplinary programs such as the Center for Renewable Carbon, the Tennessee Biofuels Initiative and the master’s degree in landscape architecture. Between 2006 and 2010, external grant support for the Institute of Agriculture increased 30 percent from $26.6 million to $34.8 million annually.

A veterinarian by training, DiPietro’s research emphasis was veterinary parasitology. He earned his bachelor’s, doctor of veterinary medicine and master’s degrees at the University of Illinois, Urbana.

Before coming to UT, DiPietro served as dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Florida from 1997 to 2006. Prior to that, he rose to tenured professor of veterinary clinical medicine and veterinary pathobiology at the University of Illinois, Urbana, and held administrative positions there including assistant director of the Agriculture Experiment Station and associate dean for research of the College of Veterinary Medicine.

DiPietro and his wife, Deb, live in Knoxville and have three children and eight grandchildren.