Dr. Eric Widmer (born in

Beirut Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...

) is an American

scholar A scholar is a person who pursues academic and intellectual activities, particularly academics who apply their intellectualism into expertise in an area of study. A scholar can also be an academic, who works as a professor, teacher, or researche ...

and

educator A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. whe ...

. He was born in Lebanon where his American mother was on the faculty of the American University in Beirut. He was educated at Deerfield, Williams, and

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

. After finishing his

Ph.D A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common Academic degree, degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields ...

, he joined the faculty at

Brown Brown is a color. It can be considered a composite color, but it is mainly a darker shade of orange. In the CMYK color model used in printing or painting, brown is usually made by combining the colors orange and black. In the RGB color model used ...

teaching Chinese History and would then go on to spend much of his career there as a dean. He then served as

Deerfield Academy Deerfield Academy is an elite coeducational preparatory school in Deerfield, Massachusetts. Founded in 1797, it is one of the oldest secondary schools in the United States. It is a member of the Eight Schools Association, the Ten Schools Admissi ...

's 54th Headmaster from 1994 to 2006, and was succeeded in that post by Margarita O'Byrne Curtis. He left the school to assume the position of founding headmaster at

King's Academy King's Academy (Arabic Translation: "كينغز أكاديمي") is an independent, co-educational boarding and day school for students in grades 7 through 12 in Madaba-Manja, Jordan. It is named in honor of King Abdullah II of Jordan and seeks ...

Madaba Madaba ( ar, مادبا; Biblical Hebrew: ''Mēḏəḇāʾ''; grc, Μήδαβα) is the capital city of Madaba Governorate in central Jordan, with a population of about 60,000. It is best known for its Byzantine and Umayyad mosaics, espec ...

Jordan Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...

, which began its first academic year in fall 2007. He speaks six languages including French and Chinese. He is married to Dr. Meera Viswanathan, a longstanding member of the

East Asian studies East Asian studies is a distinct multidisciplinary field of scholarly enquiry and education that promotes a broad humanistic understanding of East Asia past and present. The field includes the study of the region's culture, written language, hist ...

and

comparative literature Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across linguistic, national, geographic, and disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role similar to that of the study ...

departments at

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

, who now serves as Head of School at the

Ethel Walker School The Ethel Walker School, also commonly referred to as “Walker’s”, is a private, college preparatory, boarding and day school for girls in grades 6 through 12 plus postgraduate located in Simsbury, Connecticut. History Founded in 1911, ...

. His mother, Carolyn Ladd Widmer, was the first Dean of the

University of Connecticut The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university in Storrs, Connecticut, a village in the town of Mansfield. The primary 4,400-acre (17.8 km2) campus is in Storrs, approximately a half hour's drive from Hart ...

School of Nursing (1942–1967).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Widmer, Eric People from Beirut Deerfield Academy alumni Harvard University alumni 20th-century births Heads of Deerfield Academy Williams College alumni Brown University faculty American expatriates in Lebanon American expatriates in Jordan Living people Year of birth missing (living people)