C. Reynold Verret

University president C. Reynold Verret was born on October 8, 1954 in the Petion-Ville suburb of Port-Au-Prince, Haiti to Marie Lorraine Vaval Verret and Henri C. Verret. He grew up in Haiti until his family’s migration to the United States in 1963. In 1972, Verret graduated from Brooklyn Preparatory High School in New York City, New York. He received his B.S. degree in biochemistry from Columbia University in 1976, his Ph.D. degree in biological chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1982, and his M.D.P. degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 2004.

After completing his Ph.D. degree, Verret worked as a research fellow at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut in 1982 and as a research fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for Cancer Research in 1984. In 1989, Verret was hired as an assistant professor at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana. Verret also served as an adjunct professor of immunology at the Morehouse School of Medicine from 1994 to 2002. In 1995, Verret joined Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta, Georgia, where he served as the chair of the department of chemistry in 1996. Verret then worked as a dean and professor of chemistry at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from 2002 to 2007. In 2007, Verret left the University of the Sciences and served as provost and a professor of chemistry for eight years at Wilkes College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. In 2015, Verret was elected as the president of Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans, the only Catholic Historically Black University in the United States.

Verret held the positions of director of the Knowledge Network on Social Exclusion World Health Organization Commission on Social Determinants of Health, chair of the review panel for the HHC HIV Testing Expansion Innovation Fund, chair of the MBRS Standing Subcommittee at the National Institutes of Health, and advisor to the director of HIV Services at the NYC Health and Hospital Corporation. Verret also served on the boards of numerous organizations including the Pennsylvania Humanities Council, the Greater Wilkes-Barre Chamber of Commerce, the Philadelphia Math & Science Coalition, and the Georgia Governor’s Cancer Initiative.

Throughout his career, Verret has received numerous awards and honors including the King Crown Award from Columbia University in 1976, the Karl Taylor Compton Prize from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1980, the Award for Academic Excellence and Student Mentoring from the Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) in 1999, and the First Year Advising Award from the University of the Sciences in 2004.

Verret has two children, Jose Emmanuel and Vincent Antoine Verret. He resides in New Orleans, Louisiana.

C. Reynold Verret was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on December 11, 2023.