Position Title
Interim Vice Provost and Dean, Global Affairs
Michael Lazzara began serving as interim vice provost and dean of Global Affairs on October 1, 2026. In this role, he leads UC Davis’ efforts to advance global learning, welcome and support international students and scholars and foster equitable partnerships around the world.
Lazzara joined the Global Affairs leadership team as associate vice provost of Academic Programs and Partnerships in 2019. He has helped advance the university’s global academic programs and international partnerships and strengthen engagement with faculty across UC Davis.
A longtime UC Davis faculty member and international educator, Lazzara is a professor of Latin American literature and cultural studies in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. He has held numerous academic leadership roles, including chair of the UC Davis Academic Senate Committee on International Education, chair of the UC systemwide Committee on International Education and member of the UC Education Abroad Program Executive Committee. He also serves on and leads committees within national and global international education organizations, including the Association of International Education Administrators (AIEA) and Universitas 21. For two decades, he has regularly led UC Davis Study Abroad programs in Latin America.
Lazzara’s research focuses on postdictatorship and postconflict culture in contemporary Latin America, particularly how individuals and societies remember and respond to political violence. He is the author, editor or translator of numerous books, including Chile in Transition: The Poetics and Politics of Memory, Luz Arce and Pinochet’s Chile: Testimony in the Aftermath of State Violence and Civil Obedience: Complicity and Complacency in Chile since Pinochet.
A Fulbright Scholar in Chile, Lazzara’s work reflects a longstanding commitment to international education and global learning, human rights and international academic collaboration. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Notre Dame and his master’s and doctoral degrees from Princeton University.