Rev. Scott R. Pilarz, S.J., Ph.D., entered the Society of Jesus in 1981 and was ordained a priest in 1992. He received his bachelor's degree in English from Georgetown University, and a master's degree in philosophy from Fordham University, New York. He received master's degrees in divinity and theology from the Weston School of Theology, Cambridge, Mass. He went on to earn a Ph.D. in English at the City University of New York, and his dissertation, Sacerdotal Self-Fashioning: The Construction of Priesthood in Early Modern Religious Poetry, won the 1997 CUNY Alumni Achievement Prize for Dissertation Excellence.

As he was completing his studies at Weston, Fr. Pilarz served as a lecturer in the philosophy department of Sts. Peter & Paul Seminary at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. While completing doctoral studies, he was appointed to the English faculty of St. Joseph's University in 1994. In 1996, he joined the Georgetown faculty as an assistant professor of English. In 2002, he was appointed interim University Chaplain, where he served as a member of the President's Cabinet and was responsible for leading campus ministry efforts on Georgetown's Main, Medical and Law campuses. He worked with the President to promote Georgetown's Catholic and Jesuit character, sponsored inter-religious dialogue and coordinated interfaith activities on all three of Georgetown's campuses.

He was recognized by the Georgetown Alumni Association in 2002 with the William Gaston Award for Outstanding Service and was chosen by the graduating class of 1999 to receive the Edward B. Bunn, S.J., Award for Faculty Excellence, an award that recognizes outstanding teaching and service.

As a scholar, Fr. Pilarz has delivered numerous papers at scholarly conferences on various aspects of Medieval and Renaissance literature. He has also lectured and published on topics related to Jesuit education. His articles on John Donne, Robert Southwell and Medieval drama have appeared in academic journals and collections of essays, and his book, Robert Southwell, S.J., and the Mission of Literature 1561-1595: Writing Reconciliation, has been published by Ashgate Press. In 1998, he received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and he has received three research grants and a competitive junior faculty research leave from Georgetown.

Fr. Pilarz serves on the boards of Boston College, the Community Medical Center, Scranton, and Camden Catholic High School in Cherry Hill, N.J., from which he graduated. His professional memberships include the John Donne Society, the Renaissance Society of America, the Shakespeare Association of America, the Medieval and Renaissance Drama Society, the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America, the Modern Language Association, and Scranton Preparatory School, Scranton,Pa.

Fr. Pilarz served as a member of The University of Scranton's the Board of Trustees since 2000. Fr. Pilarz became the twenty-fourth President of The University of Scranton on July 1, 2003.