Joanna McNulty has been named associate vice president for academic finance and administration at the University of Notre Dame, effective Dec. 5. 

Upon assuming the newly created role, McNulty will join the leadership team of John McGreevy, the Charles and Jill Fischer Provost, and provide strategic leadership for academic budgeting, finance and planning while serving as the provost’s primary adviser on the financial plan for Notre Dame’s academic core.

She will manage a team of professionals in developing the annual academic budget, conducting multi-year financial planning and analysis and overseeing faculty payroll. Her responsibilities will include working closely with the deans, associate provosts and academic business offices and serving as principal liaison to the Finance Division, in particular the Office of Budget and Planning and the Office of the Controller.

“Joanna is an accomplished financial leader who has creatively and effectively stewarded funding for some of the University’s most urgent priorities,” McGreevy said. “She is deeply invested in the programs and people of the University, and is a strategic partner in identifying ways to elicit the best from both. I am excited to welcome her to the Provost’s Office.”

McNulty has worked at Notre Dame for 20 years, taking on roles of increasing scope and responsibility. She joined Notre Dame in 2002 as program coordinator for the Notre Dame Center for Aquatic Conservation, predecessor to the Notre Dame Environmental Change Initiative. Following the program’s evolution, she served as business and program manager for the initiative, where she helped ECI researchers secure and manage more than $27 million in extramural funding. She also participated in the research and co-authored several publications.

From there, she joined Notre Dame Research (NDR) as director of finance and administration prior to being promoted to senior director of planning and business operations. In this capacity, she managed a $60 million financial portfolio, providing financial analysis and integrating short- and long-range resource planning while also leading NDR’s human resources function. Several of her contributions at NDR will have long-term impact for the division, such as overhauling the budgeting process for all annual requests, initiating an organizational effectiveness program designed to attract and retain high-performing staff, and founding and co-chairing its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee.

McNulty graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1990 with a Bachelor of Science in biology and completed a secondary teacher certification program at Indiana University in 1993. She was a member of the second cohort of the John Affleck-Graves High-Performance Leadership Program at Notre Dame.