James Bullock named dean of the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Astrophysicist James Bullock has been named dean of the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, effective July 1, USC announced Monday.

Bullock currently serves as dean of the School of Physical Sciences at the University of California, Irvine, where he oversees the departments of chemistry, earth system science, mathematics, and physics and astronomy.

“James is a visionary scientist whose work is informed by expansive questions about the Milky Way and beyond,” USC President Carol Folt said. “His ability to see possibility will allow him to guide USC Dornsife through an evolving world of scientific discovery, technological innovation and social sciences. His proven leadership in fostering new interdisciplinary and community collaborations will strengthen the reach and impact of the college’s scholarship.”

“I am excited to have James join us as the new dean of USC Dornsife,” said Andrew T. Guzman, USC provost and senior vice president for academic affairs. “His forward-thinking spirit and enthusiasm for our academic mission have inspired everyone involved in the search process. He is ideally suited to handle the complexities and opportunities facing the largest school at USC. I look forward to working with him to build on USC Dornsife’s world-class scholarship and superb teaching.”

A professor of physics and astronomy and an authority on galaxy formation and the nature of dark matter, Bullock has been a member of the UCI faculty since 2004 and dean of the School of Physical Sciences since 2019. As dean, he has focused on strengthening opportunities for student success and elevating the school’s reputation locally and globally. He doubled the school’s philanthropic support, founded an Industry Advisory Board made up of local CEOs and influential alumni, and raised funds to establish a quantum science institute, the first of its kind at UCI.

Championing liberal arts and sciences

Bullock expressed excitement about leading the breadth of disciplines at USC Dornsife, USC’s largest and oldest school, which encompasses the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences. “It’s the heart and soul of USC,” said Bullock, who will also hold the Anna H. Bing Dean’s Chair.

USC Dornsife’s emphasis on interdisciplinary learning is among the factors that drew Bullock to the position. “I’m somebody who benefited tremendously from having a liberal arts education,” he said. He recalled how, as an undergraduate at The Ohio State University, he was reluctant to enroll in courses outside of his majors in physics and mathematics. But taking courses in English, philosophy, history and other disciplines had a profound and lasting influence on his scholarship.

“It made me a better scientist,” said Bullock, who went on to earn a doctorate in physics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. “Exposure to other ways of understanding and knowing … changed the way I approached problems.”

USC Dornsife’s alumni include Nobel laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners, tech entrepreneurs and civic leaders, reflecting the college’s deep commitment to preparing students not only for successful careers but also for meaningful lives. “That’s one reason why I am so excited about this opportunity, because I do think that the liberal arts are a vehicle to a deeper and richer life,” he said.

Bullock will be the 23rd dean to lead USC Dornsife since its founding in 1880. He succeeds Amber D. Miller, now president of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and takes the reins from interim Dean Moh El-Naggar.

Exploring mysteries of the galaxy

Bullock likened his exploration of the liberal arts to looking through a telescope — both activities expanded his horizons. One of Bullock’s earliest memories is viewing the moon through a telescope for the first time when he was around 5 years old. “It was this sudden realization that there’s a lot more out there in the universe than you could see in your immediate surroundings,” Bullock said. “A window cracked open into a larger existence.”

He grew up to be a scientist drawn to sweeping questions about humanity’s place in the cosmos: “How did our galaxy form, and how do we think about ourselves, our own galaxy and our own planet in the context of this broad universe that we exist within?” he said.

Using computer simulations, analytic models and data from powerful telescopes including the James Webb Space Telescope, Bullock studies how galaxies and their constituent dark matter halos came to be and evolved over billions of years.

He has served as chair of the University of California Observatories Keck Time Allocation Committee for Extragalactic Science, director of the University of California multicampus Southern California Center for Galaxy Evolution, and director of the UCI Center for Cosmology. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a fellow of the American Physical Society.

Shaping USC Dornsife to meet challenges of the future

Bullock arrives at USC Dornsife at a time of rapid societal change due to the rise of artificial intelligence and other factors. “Graduates of USC Dornsife will move into jobs that today don’t even exist,” Bullock said. “The skills necessary to thrive and contribute in a society so ripe with change are exactly those core to the liberal arts: deep understanding, critical thinking, effective communication and scientific rigor.”

He cited USC Dornsife’s strengths in hands-on research, experiential learning and community engagement as being key to preparing students for careers of the future. Students collaborate directly with faculty on research projects across a wide range of disciplines — on campus, in Los Angeles and around the world — gaining experience often reserved for graduate students at other institutions. Programs like USC Dornsife’s Public Exchange connect academic expertise with public agencies and nonprofits to drive real-world impact.

“I think USC Dornsife can be the global exemplar of what a liberal arts education is,” Bullock said. “Public engagement and impactful scholarship will go hand in hand with our educational mission, which has never been more crucial. I’m so excited to lock arms with our world-class faculty, staff and students to demonstrate the power and promise of letters, arts and sciences for Los Angeles and the world beyond.”

Getting in the Trojan spirit

Bullock — who lives in Manhattan Beach with his wife, Blake Bullock, a vice president at Northrop Grumman, and two daughters, ages 13 and 16 — has found USC Dornsife to be a “welcoming and warm place,” he said.

During campus visits, he observed that “students, faculty and staff care so much about USC and USC Dornsife in particular,” he said, noting that the spirit of the Trojan Family is “deeply felt.”

He got a taste of just how expansive the Trojan Family is on the day he received a call from a USC recruiter notifying him of the dean opportunity at USC Dornsife. “When I got the call, I was in the middle of listening to the novel James,” Bullock said. He soon realized that the novel’s author, Percival Everett, is a Distinguished Professor of English at USC Dornsife — “a great connection,” he said.