Mary Lomax-Ghirarduzzi

Dr. Mary J. Lomax-Ghirarduzzi is a nationally recognized higher education executive, professor, scholar, and civic leader whose career has centered on strengthening institutions, expanding student opportunity, and building mission-driven communities. She currently serves as Vice President for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Executive Officer at the University of the Pacific, where she is also a tenured Professor of Communication. In her executive role, she provides university-wide leadership across Pacific's campuses in Stockton, Sacramento, and San Francisco and serves as a trusted advisor to the president, Board of Regents, cabinet, and academic leadership. 

At the heart of her leadership is a commitment to bringing strategy, mission, academic excellence, student success, and community impact into a shared institutional vision.

Across more than three decades in higher education, Dr. Lomax has held progressively senior leadership positions at the University of the Pacific, University of San Francisco, Otis College of Art and Design, and California State University, San Marcos. Her leadership experience encompasses institutional strategy, governance, student success, accreditation, enrollment and retention, policy development, community engagement, organizational culture, fundraising partnerships, and academic affairs. At the University of San Francisco, where she served for a decade as Vice Provost for Diversity and Community Engagement, she created and led university-wide diversity and community engagement operations aligned with the institution's Jesuit mission and commitment to social justice. She is an affiliate faculty at the USC Race and Equity Center.

Her leadership extends well beyond the university. She has served as President and Commissioner of the San Francisco Public Library Commission, Chair of the Urban Libraries Council, and on the boards of the Ignatian Solidarity Network, San Francisco Interfaith Council, St. Ignatius College Preparatory School, and iHub San Joaquin. She also serves on the Governing Board for California's Black-Serving Institutions initiative. Her civic leadership has included oversight of major public budgets, successful ballot and capital initiatives, CEO transition leadership, and partnerships connecting education, government, philanthropy, and communities. 

An accomplished scholar and public intellectual, Dr. Lomax writes and speaks on leadership, power, intersectionality, race, and equity, Ignatian spirituality, governance, and institutional transformation. Her publications include Twice as Good: Leadership and Power for Women of Color, scholarship on equity in health professions education, and a contribution to An Ignatian Spirituality Reader. She has presented nationally on leadership, higher education, anti-racism, student success, free speech, governance, and social justice. 

She earned her Doctor of Education in Organizational Behavior and Leadership from the Graduate School of Education and Psychology at Pepperdine University, a Master of Arts in Counseling and Social Justice Education from San Diego State University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Communication from the University of the Pacific. Her numerous recognitions include the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education Individual Leadership Award, Most Influential Women Award by the San Francisco Business Journal, and the Susan B. Anthony Award from the San Joaquin County Commission on the Status of Women.

Across the classroom, cabinet table, boardroom, and community, she has built a career around fundamental questions: How can institutions translate their deepest values into meaningful outcomes for the people and communities they serve? How do we institutionalize love?