Ángel Cabrera is the incoming President and CEO of the Aspen Institute and currently serves as President of the Georgia Institute of Technology, one of the world’s leading technological research universities. An internationally respected educator and institutional leader, he has devoted his career to advancing values-based leadership, expanding opportunity for rising generations through education, and ensuring that innovation serves the broader public good. A longtime member of the Aspen Institute community, including as a 2008 Henry Crown Fellow, he will assume his new role on November 1, 2026.
Since becoming Georgia Tech’s 12th president in 2019, he has guided the institution through one of the most dynamic periods in its history. Enrollment has grown by more than 55 percent to more than 56,000 students, making Georgia Tech one of the nation’s fastest-growing research universities, while annual sponsored research awards have exceeded $1.4 billion. Under his leadership, Georgia Tech has strengthened its position among the world’s premier technological universities, expanding research leadership in areas such as artificial intelligence, neuroscience, advanced manufacturing, quantum technologies, and space, while deepening its role as a driver of innovation, entrepreneurship, and economic opportunity in Atlanta, Georgia, and beyond.
Working alongside more than 5,700 faculty, students, staff, alumni, and partners, Dr. Cabrera led the development of Georgia Tech’s ten-year strategic plan, Progress and Service for All, which articulates the University’s mission of developing leaders who advance technology and improve the human condition. Since its adoption, Georgia Tech has achieved record levels of student demand, enrollment, graduation rates, research funding, startup creation, invention disclosures, and philanthropic support, while driving major capital improvements in Atlanta and in Europe, and expanding access to high-quality education through innovative degree programs that have become models for higher education worldwide.
Prior to Georgia Tech, Dr. Cabrera served for seven years as President of George Mason University, where he led the institution to R1 research status, oversaw the largest enrollment growth in Virginia, and expanded its global footprint with the establishment of a campus in South Korea. Earlier, he served as President of the Thunderbird School of Global Management, now part of Arizona State University, and as Dean of IE Business School in Madrid, where he helped establish its reputation as one of Europe’s leading business schools.
Trained as both an engineer and a behavioral scientist, Dr. Cabrera’s scholarship in organizational behavior, leadership, and knowledge management has been cited thousands of times. He has been recognized as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and as a Great Immigrant by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. He is a first-generation college graduate and the first person born in Spain to serve as president of an American university.
Dr. Cabrera earned his M.S. and Ph.D. in psychology and cognitive science from the Georgia Institute of Technology as a Fulbright Scholar, and undergraduate and graduate degrees in computer and electrical engineering from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. He has received honorary doctorates from Miami Dade College and the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. He serves on the boards of the Association of American Universities, the National Geographic Society, the Bankinter Innovation Foundation, the Metro Atlanta Chamber, and TIAA, and is a member of the Harvard College Visiting Committee.
Dr. Cabrera and his wife, Beth, an accomplished management scholar and wellbeing expert, have two adult children, Alex and Emilia, and a daughter-in-law, Kristen.
