
Adam F. Falk serves on the board of the Science Philanthropy Alliance and is president of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which makes grants in support of research and education in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and economics.
Prior to joining the foundation in January 2018, Falk served as president of Williams College from 2010 through 2017. His accomplishments while at Williams include a deepened commitment to student body diversity and inclusion, increased attention to campus sustainability, and major investments in academic facilities. Falk came to Williams from the Johns Hopkins University, where he had been a member of the physics faculty since 1994 and served as the James B. Knapp Dean of the university’s Krieger School of Arts and Sciences from 2006 to 2010 following service as dean of the faculty and interim dean.
A physicist whose research focused on elementary particle physics and quantum field theory, Falk is a fellow of the American Physical Society and a winner of the Johns Hopkins Alumni Association Excellence in Teaching Award. He is the author of more than 50 peer-reviewed papers covering a variety of theoretical topics, most particularly the interactions and decays of mesons and baryons containing heavy quarks. Falk graduated with a B.S. with Highest Distinction as a Morehead-Cain Scholar from the University of North Carolina in 1987 and earned his Ph.D. in 1991 from Harvard University.