Santa Ono
Santa Jeremy Ono is a Canadian-American immunologist.
Ono served in a variety of roles, including as the 15th president of the University of Michigan from October 2022 to May 2025, as the 15th president of the University of British Columbia from 2016 to 2022, and as the 28th president of the University of Cincinnati from 2012 to 2016. Ono was selected to serve as the 14th president of the University of Florida in May 2025, but was rejected in early June by the Florida Board of Governors for the position.
In August 2025, Ono was appointed president of the global division at the Ellison Institute of Technology, Oxford Limited, a private limited company incorporated in November 2021 in England. He would be responsible for assisting John Bell, the company's president, in expanding its local science programs and overseeing its global affairs.
Early life and education
Born in 1962, Santa Ono is the son of Japanese mathematician Takashi Ono, who immigrated to the United States from Japan in the late 1950s. Ono was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, where his father worked as an assistant professor of mathematics at the University of British Columbia from 1961 to 1964. Ono has United States citizenship and Canadian citizenship.Ono was raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Towson, Maryland, where his father worked as a faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania from 1964 to 1969 and at Johns Hopkins University from 1969 to 2011, respectively. His older brother is Momoro Ono and his younger brother is Ken Ono.
Ono received a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in biological sciences from the University of Chicago in 1984 and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in experimental medicine from McGill University in Canada in 1991.
Career
At University College London, Ono served as associate dean of students and as a member of the University College London Council. From 2006 to 2010, Ono served as senior vice provost for undergraduate education and academic affairs at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.University of Cincinnati
In June 2010, Ono was named senior vice president for academic affairs and university provost at the University of Cincinnati, with oversight of budgets, personnel, and planning.In 2012, Ono was named the 28th president of the University of Cincinnati in Ohio, becoming the first Japanese-American president of that university. U Square at the Loop, a US$78 million mixed-use development, was opened during his presidency. In January 2015, Inside Higher Ed named Ono as "the nation's most notable college president for 2015".
On July 19, 2015, Samuel DuBose, a Black unarmed motorist who was not affiliated with the university, was fatally shot by a University of Cincinnati police officer after DuBose was stopped off-campus for driving a car without a front license plate. It sparked widespread protests for many days with some being arrested. In January 2016, on the condition of Ono's formal apology, the university reached a US$4.85 million civil settlement with the family of Samuel DuBose.
University of British Columbia
On June 15, 2016, Ono was named the 15th president and vice chancellor of the University of British Columbia in Canada, effective August 15. He was re-appointed for a second five-year term on August 11, 2020.In February 2017, Ono reinstated John Furlong as keynote speaker for a university fundraiser despite allegations of Furlong's abuse of Indigenous children during his time as a teacher in a remote community. Furlong's participation sparked protests from UBC students and activists, including some of his alleged victims. This incident led to the resignation of the only Indigenous member of UBC's Sexual Assault Policy Committee. Ono's decision to reinvite Furlong followed reported pressure from wealthy donors.
In June 2018, Ono's social media presence was noted by The Ubyssey, the official UBC student newspaper, as lacking a clear distinction between his personal views and university policies, leading to ambiguity and sometimes prompting clarification from the university's Public Affairs.
In July 2019, Amazon announced plans to establish Canada's first "Cloud Innovation Centre" at UBC. The project proceeded without community consultation. Contract details were withheld until a student group obtained them through a freedom of information request. The documents showed that the Ono administration followed Amazon's directive to keep the CA$3 million funding for the use of university technology confidential.
In October 2019, at least six students were given medical attention for suspected drugging incidents at a fraternity party. Following this, a female professor faced online abuse after criticizing the fraternities involvement in Remembrance Day ceremonies. However, the university administration, under the Ono presidency, responded and emphasized freedom of expression rather than condemning the harassment against the professor, affirming its "commitment to freedom of expression and academic freedom".
During Ono's tenure, the university hosted multiple controversial speakers promoting white supremacist, Islamophobic, and neo-Nazi movements, often invited by student groups with extreme views. Ono inaccurately claimed equal community support for an anti-trans speaker event, leading to the Vancouver Pride Society's decision in July 2019 to ban UBC's participation in the Vancouver Pride Parade.
University of Michigan
On July 13, 2022, Ono was named as the 15th president of the University of Michigan, with his term beginning on October 13, 2022. He became the first Japanese-American to lead the university. In October 2023, Ono received a 4% raise in base salary, increasing it from US$975,000 to US$1,014,000 annually.Under the Ono presidency, the university conducted a renovation of the President's House, the official residence of the university president, from 2022 to 2023 at a cost of US$11.5 million.
During Ono's March 2023 address, he stated that DEI would be a major focus of his presidency. In response to a donor's request for clarification on how the university spent money on DEI programs in 2023, Ono wrote, "I'm very proud of what has been accomplished and I'm excited about what's going to happen with DEI 2.0". In January 2024, the university was reported to have 241 employees in the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion offices, with payroll costs totaling more than US$30 million annually. On March 27, 2025, citing the Trump administration's executive order, Ono reversed his previous DEI policies and shut down the university's DEI programs and offices.
In May 2023, Ono spent US$575,000 to purchase a house in the far Detroit suburb of West Bloomfield Township in Oakland County, about 45 miles from Ann Arbor, despite his contract requiring residency in the President's House. The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that Ono was often absent from campus and "missed numerous executive-officer-council meetings", which led to "a leadership void and squabbles in some cases". Ono stated in his primary residence tax exemption affidavit to the state of Michigan that he spends "100%" of his time at the Oakland County address, which he also used for voter registration and his driver's license. After he told the local newspaper The Detroit News in June 2024 that he lived in Oakland County only on occasional weekends or holidays, questions about his residency prompted a review by the local tax assessor, who in August found nothing against Ono's sworn affidavit of having his "only primary residence" in Oakland County instead of Ann Arbor.
On October 17, 2024, the university's Board of Regents voted unanimously to extend Ono's contract by an additional eight years, through October 1, 2032. The extension also increased Ono's base salary to US$1.3 million per year, a 33% rise since he started his tenure two years before. Media reported that he used Florida's 2024 offer to get this pay increase.
On January 10, 2025, Ono shut down the University of Michigan's two-decade-long partnership with Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China since 2005, terminating the UM–SJTU Joint Institute as well as the dual-degree and study-abroad programs.
On May 4, 2025, the day after giving a speech as the president on the University of Michigan's spring commencement, Ono announced through a campus email that he became the sole finalist for the presidency of the University of Florida and decided to leave Michigan. Ono submitted his resignation letter to the chair of the Board of Regents on the same day, resigning from all university employment, including his faculty position. On May 5, Rebekah Modrak, chair of the university's Faculty Senate, said that many professors had complained that Ono's campus emails seemed to have been written by ChatGPT. Katherine White, the chair of the Board of Regents, accepted Ono's resignation in writing on May 6. Ono's tenure as president at the University of Michigan was the shortest of all past presidents. The University of Michigan Board of Regents appointed Domenico Grasso, the then-chancellor of the University of Michigan–Dearborn, as the university's interim president on May 8. Media reports noted that Ono did not comply with the clause in his contract that required him to give six-month advance notice of his voluntary resignation.
On June 27, 2025, Ono was sued as a defendant in a federal civil class action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan in Detroit by a group of female college athletes. They alleged that the Ono administration allowed an athletics coordinator to continue coaching and conceal his identity from students after learning that he had hacked into their accounts and stolen personal photos. The coordinator was indicted on 24 charges in federal court in March 2025, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation said that the hacking affected "more than 3,000 student-athletes", most of whom were women.