April 4, 2025, marked three years since the University System of Maryland Board of Regents appointed Valerie Sheares Ashby as the president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC).

She became UMBC's sixth chief executive on August 1, 2022, and is the first woman to hold this position in the university's history.

Before joining UMBC, Ashby served as the dean of Duke University's Trinity College of Arts & Sciences from 2015 onward.

Before her time at Duke, she was a faculty member at the University of North Carolina (UNC), where she served from 2003, chaired the chemistry department from 2012 to 2015, and was involved in various initiatives, including serving on the university’s Arts & Sciences Foundation Board of Directors and Research Advisory Council.

She directed UNC's National Science Foundation (NSF) Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate, which aimed to increase the number of students completing doctoral degrees and becoming professors in STEM and social, behavioral, and economic sciences.

Ashby earned her B.A. and Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and completed postdoctoral research at the University of Mainz in Germany.

In August 2022, Career Communications Group announced that Ashby had been nominated for the Technologist of the Year Award for her leadership as a polymer chemist, with over ten patents to her name from her research group at the university.

The Technologist of the Year Award recognizes individuals for their high merit, the broad impact of their work, and overall value to society. Ashby is noted for combining technical expertise with collaborative and engaging leadership.

She received her award at the annual gala, which took place simultaneously on the WOC STEM digital twin experience (DTX) platform and in Detroit.

During the gala, Monica Emerson, National Chair of the WOC STEM DTX Conference, highlighted that Sheares Ashby was selected from an extraordinary group of leaders in STEM.

The WOC STEM Conference offers seminars that focus on retention, career advancement, continuous improvement, and networking. This conference is produced by Career Communications Group (CCG), a leader in workforce development.