The 54-year old Tilghman has two children—one of whom is a member of Princeton’s graduating class of 2002.

She was born and raised in Canada, and received her B.Sc. in Chemistry from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario in 1968. In 1975, Tilghman earned a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Temple University.

The Search

The search to find the next Princeton president began last September after Shapiro announced he would leave his post at the end of the academic year to return to teaching and research in the economics department.

Tilghman was a member of that presidential search committee until approximately six weeks ago.

According to Wright, several members of the committee had approached committee chairman Robert H. Rawson to suggest Tilghman as a candidate.

But Wright said that Rawson resisted such suggestions for several months because he felt that Tilghman was a valuable member of the committee whose input he did not want to lose and hesitated to ask Tilghman to step down before he was sure she would be a finalist.

The opportunity to discuss Tilghman as a candidate came when she left a search meeting early to teach. According to Wright, it was at that point that Rawson opened a discussion about Tilghman as a potential candidate.