The Georgia Board of Regents voted Thursday to hire Ángel Cabrera as Georgia Tech’s new president.
Cabrera, who received his master’s and doctoral degrees from Georgia Tech, has been president of George Mason University, located in Fairfax, Va., since July 2012. Cabrera met his wife, who is also a Georgia Tech graduate, when they were enrolled there. Their son, Alex, is a recent Georgia Tech graduate.
Cabrera will start by Sept. 15.
Cabrera’s predecessor, G.P. “Bud” Peterson, announced in January his plans to retire.
“I am thrilled to serve as Georgia Tech’s new president,” Cabrera said in a statement. “My academic career was shaped here as was my personal life.”
“In many ways, this is a wonderful homecoming for us. As a member of the Georgia Tech Advisory Board for about a decade, I have witnessed Georgia Tech’s emergence as one of the leading technological universities in the world and admired its role in making Atlanta a thriving hub of innovation.”
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State officials announced last week that Cabrera was the sole finalist for the job. Some students said they were opposed to Cabrera’s hiring, raising complaints that the selection process wasn’t transparent.
The terms of Cabrera’s contract weren’t immediately available. Peterson had an annual compensation package of about $1.1 million, the highest of any president of a public college or university in Georgia. Cabrera’s 2018-19 total compensation was $563,926, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported.