ITHACA, N.Y. (AP) — Cornell University trustees have selected University of Southern California Provost Elizabeth Garrett to be the Ivy League school’s next president.

Garrett will become the first woman to lead Cornell when she becomes president July 1, 2015. The 51-year-old provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at USC succeeds David Skorton, who will become the next secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in 2015.

The Cornell board of trustees unanimously elected Garrett on Tuesday.

Garrett was appointed to her current position at USC in October 2010.

She is married to USC law professor Andrei Marmor, who will join Cornell as a full professor in the College of Arts and Sciences and the university’s law school.

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