Jacquelyn S. Fetrow

Jacquelyn S. Fetrow

President 

Albright College 

An accomplished higher education administrator and award-winning teacher widely published in computational biology, Fetrow began her tenure as president, June 1, 2017. 

She returned to her alma mater from the University of Richmond, where she was provost and vice president for academic affairs, as well as a professor of chemistry. As provost, she served as the university’s chief academic officer, with responsibilities that included oversight of the university’s academic mission, budget planning, tenure and promotion processes. 

Prior to her tenure at the University of Richmond, Fetrow served for 11 years at Wake Forest University as Reynolds Professor of Computational Biophysics, and for more than five years as the dean of Wake Forest College. Previously, she had served for four years as chief scientific officer and director of GeneFormatics, a biotechnology software company which she co-founded. As part of its executive management team, Fetrow played a key role in developing company strategy, raising more than $50 million and building the 65-person organization. 

Fetrow’s ongoing protein research focuses on understanding the relationships between structure, function and dynamics, with a long-range goal of understanding the mechanisms of protein function and improving processes for structure-based drug discovery. She has published more than 80 peer-reviewed or invited articles and is listed as an inventor on five U.S. patents. Her work has been supported by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and the American Chemical Society. 

A native of Camp Hill, Fetrow is the recipient of several awards and honors, including teaching awards as well as Albright’s Distinguished Alumna Award and Young Alumna Achievement Award. Her mother, Millie (Folk) Fetrow, was a 1958 graduate of the college. 

This profile is part of Lehigh Valley Business' Higher Education Power 30 list for 2021. Information used in this profile was sourced from the honoree. See the full list at lvb.com or in our digital edition.