Ulrich Baer, a highly regarded professor of German and comparative literature and chair of the German Department, was appointed Vice Provost Designee for Globalization and Multicultural Affairs in September 2007. In that role, he has responsibility for global sites abroad and some multicultural institutes and centers.

Uli first came to NYU as an assistant professor in the Department of German in 1996. Prior to that he was a teaching fellow for two years at Yale University. A widely published scholar, editor, and translator, he is an expert on 19th- to 21st-century poetry, literary theory, and photography, and has written extensively on the intersection of collective memory, literature, and the arts. He is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, NYU's Golden Dozen Teaching Award (twice), a Getty Research Fellowship, and an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship. In 2002, NYU Press published his anthology 110 Stories: New York Writes After September 11. Under the auspices of the Office of Globalization, he has taught at the University of Amsterdam and spent a semester in Shanghai. Born in Germany, he received his B.A. from Harvard College in 1991 and his Ph.D. in comparative literature from Yale University in 1995.