Karla Zadnik is the interim executive vice president and provost of The Ohio State University and the interim dean of the university’s College of Public Health. As interim executive vice president and provost, Dr. Zadnik leads Ohio State’s Office of Academic Affairs, which oversees the university’s academic enterprise — including 15 colleges, four regional campuses, University Libraries, and units that support academic experience and operations for the university’s more than 65,000 students and 8,400 faculty members.

A Fellow of the American Academy of Optometry and a prominent patient-oriented researcher in the field of optometry and vision science, Dr. Zadnik is an Ohio State Distinguished Scholar and the Glenn A. Fry Professor of Optometry and Physiological Optics. She earned her OD and PhD degrees from the University of California, Berkeley School of Optometry and was inducted into the school’s Hall of Fame in 2023.

Most recently, Dr. Zadnik served as dean of Ohio State’s College of Optometry. Additionally, she has served as the lead dean for the university’s seven health science colleges and chaired the Biomedical Sciences Institutional Review Board.