This post was updated Aug. 6 at 9:02 p.m.

Chancellor Gene Block, who has been chancellor of UCLA since 2007, will retire at the end of the 2023-2024 academic year. 

Block received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Stanford University and also earned a master’s and doctorate degree in psychology from the University of Oregon. He will remain at UCLA to research biological timing as a faculty member. 

“The UC Office of the President will soon launch a national search for our campus’s next chancellor,” according to a campuswide email from Block. “This position at the helm of one of the world’s greatest research universities will surely be a coveted one, and I am certain we will have many excellent candidates for the role.” 

Since his appointment, UCLA has increased its ranking in numerous disciplines including medicine and law. For six years in a row, the university has been ranked the number one public university in the country by the U.S. News and World Report. 

[Related: US News & World Report ranks UCLA as No. 1 public university for 6th year in a row] 

During Block’s tenure, UCLA also launched the UCLA Grand Challenge initiative to make Los Angeles a model for sustainability in urban settings, according to UCLA Newsroom. 

UCLA has also planned to expand to downtown LA and the South Bay under Block. 

According to the chancellor’s website, UCLA also now receives more than $1.7 billion in research grants each year, allowing the research community to grow during his tenure by 88%. Block also increased student enrollment by 24%, rising from 37,476 to 46,430 students.

Block has faculty appointments in the David Geffen School of Medicine in psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences and in the College of Letters and Science in integrative biology and physiology. He has also taught multiple Fiat Lux seminar courses, with topics including the history of leadership at UCLA and neural plasticity and repair. 

Before coming to UCLA, Block spent 29 years at the University of Virginia, serving as vice president and provost, vice president for research and public service, and founding director of the National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center in Biological Timing. 

Block also serves ex officio on the executive boards of the Association of American Universities, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, and the Universities Research Association, alongside other organizations. He has received multiple awards including the LA NAACP Foundation President’s Award. 

“Serving as @UCLA’s chancellor has been the greatest honor of my life,” Block said in a tweet. “I’m looking forward to my final year as chancellor of this remarkable institution.”