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Jamie Lewis Keith

Jamie is Vice President and General Counsel of the University of Florida. In this position, Jamie is a member of the President’s cabinet and is responsible for all of the legal affairs of one of the largest public research universities in the U.S., with 50,000 students, 20,000 employees, two academic health science/medical research centers, $580 million of research annually, and NCAA Division I athletics. Jamie is also responsible for the legal affairs of the University’s over 25 tax-exempt private affiliates, including the University Athletic Association, Inc., the University of Florida Research Foundation, Inc., and the University of Florida Investment Management Company, Inc. She has a legal oversight role with the University of Florida Foundation.

Jamie is a member of the Board of the Council on Governmental Relations, a professional organization that represents the nation’s research universities and academic medical centers in Washington, D.C. on a broad range of research policy, compliance and cost issues. She is a member of the general counsels’ legal advisory group for the Association of American Universities (AAU), an organization that represents the presidents of the nation’s 60 premier research universities. Jamie is also a member of the advisory board for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Capacity Center on diversity in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, and the College Board’s so-called “brain trust” advisory group for increasing diversity in higher education. Presently, Jamie is codirecting a AAAS project, funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the National Science Foundation, with AAU’s participation. The project provides guidance to AAU institutions and, eventually, colleges and universities across the country, on effective and legally sustainable approaches to increasing faculty and student diversity in higher education, particularly in STEM fields.

Before her appointment at the University of Florida, Jamie was the first primary inside counsel for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and, before that, junior partner at the Boston law firm of Hale and Dorr LLP. She also served in former Governor William F. Weld’s administration as the Assistant Commissioner and General Counsel of Capital Asset Management, a Massachusetts agency.

After graduating with her A.B. in history of art from Cornell, Jamie graduated from Boston University School of Law and clerked on the federal appeals court. Before entering law school, she was grants coordinator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Jamie and her husband, Matthew W. Keith (Cornell Engineering, 1979) will celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary this summer, having met freshman year in “U-Hall 1”. They have one son, Will, who enrolls this fall at Pomona College. They value their dear friends from Cornell and the many extraordinary experiences and opportunities they had there.

Keith