Marie Hardin, PhD, assumed the role of president of Quinnipiac beginning on July 1, 2025. As the 10th president, Hardin oversees all aspects of Quinnipiac, an institution with approximately 9,400 undergraduate and graduate students, eight professional schools, a College of Arts and Sciences and 21 Division I athletic teams.

Hardin has deep and broad management and administrative expertise. She served as dean of the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications at Penn State from 2014 to 2025. Under her leadership, the Bellisario College, bolstered its reputation for high-quality undergraduate and graduate education, broadened its impact in interdisciplinary research, and expanded its outreach. 

Highlights of her career as dean include rebranding Bellisario College in 2017 after attracting a $30 million naming gift from alumnus Donald P. Bellisario; opening a new media center in 2020; tripling the college’s endowment and increasing total gifts to the college by more than 50% in the past three years; boasting one of the highest four-year graduation rates at Penn State for her college; tripling revenues generated through online degree programs; and expanding annual research expenditures more than four-fold.

She is an award-winning teacher and scholar with more than 60 publications in sports media, gender studies and communication. She is co-editor of two books and a book series, and co-edits the Sage journal, “Communication & Sport,” a leading title in the field. In 2013, the University of Georgia Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication named her a distinguished alumni scholar. Hardin served as president of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications in 2019. She chairs the national committee for the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication and the Hearst Foundations Journalism Awards Steering Committee.

Hardin also has taught and advised students throughout her career, including as dean. In 2009, she was one of four Penn State faculty recipients of the university-wide George W. Atherton Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Hardin is an avid runner who has completed more than 30 marathons. She is married to Jerry Kammer, a retired Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. 

Hardin earned her PhD in mass communication from the University of Georgia, an MA in communication from Georgia State University, and a BA in theology from Ambassador University in Pasadena, California.