HANOVER — Santiago Schnell, the dean of the College of Science at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, has been named the next provost of Dartmouth, the college announced Tuesday.

Following a nationwide search, a committee comprised of professors, students, administrators and a trustee selected Schnell, who is expected to begin serving as the college’s chief academic and budget officer on July 1.

“… Santiago is a brilliant, multidisciplinary scientist, a humanistic and humane thinker, and a talented administrator with deep experience of what it takes to lead a world-class research university,” Dartmouth President Sian Leah Beilock wrote in a message to the community announcing Schnell’s appointment.

Born and raised in Venezuela, Schnell studied biology at Venezuela’s Universidad Simón Bolívar, and went on to earn a doctorate in mathematical biology from the University of Oxford. He came to the United States in 2004 as an assistant professor of informatics at Indiana University.

“What drew me to Dartmouth is its rare convergence of liberal arts education and research excellence,” Schnell said in a news release from the college.

As provost, Schnell will “play a critical role” in the ongoing process of combining the Arts & Sciences undergraduate departments into a single college, the news release said.

Schnell will also hold faculty appointments in mathematics and at the Geisel School of Medicine.

Schnell will replace David Kotz who held the post on an interim basis in 2017 and 2018, and then again in July of 2021, until his appointment to the permanent position in January 2022. Kotz plans to stay on the faculty and continue his research in security and privacy in smart homes and wireless networks.