Alison R. Byerly has been named the 17th president of Lafayette College.

Byerly takes office on July 1 as the first woman president of Lafayette, which was founded in 1826.

She succeeds Daniel H. Weiss, who assumes the presidency of Haverford College in July.

Byerly has served in leadership positions at Middlebury College for 13 years, most recently as provost and executive vice president.

Byerly holds an interdisciplinary faculty appointment at Middlebury and has been a visiting scholar at MIT, Stanford and Oxford.

She is a leading voice on emerging forms of digital scholarship, the changing role of the humanities in the digital age, the importance of curricular innovation, and MOOCs (massively open online courses).

"I am greatly honored to be chosen as Lafayette's 17th president and excited by the opportunity to lead such a dynamic and ambitious institution," said Byerly.

"As an undergraduate college that encompasses both the traditional liberal arts and a strong engineering program, Lafayette provides an extraordinary range and depth of opportunities to students, yet it remains deeply committed to the highly individualized, one-on-one mentoring that is the hallmark of the residential liberal arts college."

Byerly continued, "At a time when many liberal arts colleges are looking for ways to extend their reach further into the world of technology and to connect the traditional liberal arts disciplines with opportunities to pursue more project-based, hands-on modes of inquiry, Lafayette is well positioned to lead in these initiatives."