Nemat Shafik is named the first woman to be president at Columbia University

Nemat Shafik, pictured at a Eurogroup meeting at the EU Council in Brussels on May 16, 2011, will be the first woman to serve as president of Columbia University. (Geert Vanden Wijngaert via AP)

Columbia University announced Wednesday that Nemat "Minouche" Shafik, an economist who has served as president of the London School of Economics since 2017, will be its next president. Shafik, 60, will be the first woman to lead the Ivy League institution when she replaces current president Lee Bollinger in July.

Other elite universities including Dartmouth, Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania also appointed women as their presidents in recent months.