G. Gabrielle Starr

Gina Gabrielle Starr (born 1974) is an American literary scholar, neuroscientist, and academic administrator who is the

Starr grew up in Tallahassee, Florida. She began college at Emory University at age 15, where she earned her bachelor's and master's degrees in women's studies in 1993. She then studied at the University of St Andrews in Scotland as a Robert T. Jones Scholar. From there, she earned a Ph.D. in English literature from Harvard University in 1999.^[5]

Career

After receiving her doctorate, Starr decided to retrain in cognitive neuroscience, supported by a New Directions Fellowship awarded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.^[6] She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the California Institute of Technology,^[2] exploring techniques from cognitive neuroscience.

She joined the faculty at New York University (NYU) in 2000 and became the acting dean of the College of Arts and Science in 2011 and dean suo jure in 2013.^[7][8]

With Susanne Wofford and faculty at NYU, in 2015 Starr co-founded a liberal arts prison education program at

In 2016 she was selected to be the 10th President of Pomona College, a position she assumed on July 1, 2017.^[3] She is a proponent of affirmative action.^[10][11] As of 2020^[update], her yearly compensation was valued at $685,672.^[12]

On April 5th 2024, she became the center of widespread criticism^[13] after deciding to call local riot teams in response to unarmed students entering Alexander Hall, the administration building at Pomona College.^[14] This resulted in 20 students being arrested on that night.^[15] Earlier that day, the adiminstrarion had unilaterally decided to take down signs and boards planted along Stover Walk, where groups students from the five colleges had been camping to protest the College's lack of response to the war in Gaza and to call for divestment.^[16] According to some accounts, during the removal of the boards, two female students were attacked by campus security. This prompted students to gather, and eventually enter Alexander Hall. This is the second event involving police on campus and arrests. In November 2023, a faculty member had been arrested while on campus,^[17] and Starr's response to this event had also been heavily criticized.

Research

Starr's research is highly interdisciplinary,