Northeastern University has appointed Peter Temes the new regional dean and CEO of its Seattle campus.

Temes, who will begin full time in August, comes to Northeastern from the ILO (Innovation in Large Organizations) Institute, which he founded and where he has served as president since 2005. He brings a wealth of multidimensional leadership experience that cuts across academia and entrepreneurship.

“I was dazzled by the Seattle campus,” Temes said. “Northeastern is a great university with academic depth and strengths, but it’s also very entrepreneurial in higher education. Part of what’s great about the Seattle campus is that it’s so responsive to the needs of its students and the community.”

The fast-growing Seattle campus serves some 800 students regionally and offers 48 degree programs as well as bootcamps that equip professionals with skills like data analytics and cloud computing. The Seattle campus also served as the launch site for Northeastern’s ALIGN program, a unique experiential graduate degree program designed for professionals looking to transition into the high-growth, in-demand computer science field regardless of whether they have a computer science background. Additionally, students have built and delivered software systems through research partnerships with the Institute for Systems Biology and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

Northeastern is a great university with academic depth and strengths, but it’s also very entrepreneurial in higher education. Part of what’s great about the Seattle campus is that it’s so responsive to the needs of its students and the community.

Peter Temes
Newly appointed regional dean, CEO of Northeastern University-Seattle

Temes underscored the strengths of the Seattle campus in areas such as computer science and health technology, noting that he plans to build upon these areas while simultaneously exploring the region’s evolving needs.

In 2005 Temes launched the ILO Institute, a membership organization for large institutions, focused on best practices in innovation in the public and private sectors. He described ILO as an idea-driven business that advises some of the largest organizations in the world—multi-billion-dollar corporations, to government agencies, to large nonprofits—on strategy and innovation.

Prior to ILO, Temes served as president of Antioch New England Graduate School for three years. Under his leadership, the school’s enrollment and revenues increased significantly. He also led the creation of a systemic development office at the graduate school, began the first formal fundraising campaign in the graduate school’s history, and launched the school’s first program to measure and continually improve academic quality across the institution.

Temes is the also the co-founder of the Great Books Summer Program, a summer residential program for middle- and high-school students. The program, for which he served as academic director from 2002 to 2014, now serves more than 1,000 youth annually, bringing them to college campuses to experience post-secondary level seminars.

His diverse career experience also includes founding Enterprise Interactive, an internet marketing and strategy consulting firm, and serving as a full-time faculty member at Harvard University, where he designed and taught writing-intensive courses for undergraduates. He is also founding editor of American Letters & Commentary and founding publisher of The Common Review. And he’s published many articles and books; contributed for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal; and served as an accreditor for the New England Association of Schools and Colleges and the American Academy of Liberal Education’s Charter School accreditation program.

He holds four degrees from Columbia University, including an MFA in writing, a master’s degree in English and comparative literature, a master’s of philosophy in English and American literature, and a doctorate in English and American literature. He earned his bachelor’s degree in English and philosophy from the State University of New York-Binghamton.

The Seattle campus is part of Northeastern’s network of campuses across North America, each serving as a platform for lifelong learning and industry partnerships that support research and experiential education. The educational programs offered at each hub are industry-aligned and tailored to meet the specific needs of learners and employers in the region.