Three Women Academics Named to Dean Positions

Katia Passerini is the new dean of the Albert Dorman Honors College at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark. She is a professor and holds the Hurlburt Chair of Management Information Systems at the university. Dr. Passerini is the coauthor of Information Technology for Small Business: Managing the Digital Enterprise (Springer, 2012).

Passerini holds a master’s degree in economics from the University of Rome. She earned an MBA and a Ph.D. in information systems from George Washington University.

Shirley Lefever-Davis was appointed dean of the College of Education at Wichita State University in Kansas. She has served as interim dean since June 2013. Previously, she was a senior associate dean and professor in the College of Education at the university. She has been on the faculty at Wichita State since 2005.

Dr. Lefever-Davis holds a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree, and a doctorate in curriculum and instruction, all from Kansas State University.

Kathryn J. Boor was reappointed to a new term as the Ronald P. Lynch Dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.  She became dean in July 2010. Prior to her appointment as dean, Dr. Boor served as professor and chair of the department of food science at Cornell.

Dr. Boor is graduate of Cornell University and earned a master’s degree in food science at the University of Wisconsin. After conducting research in Kenya for two years, she returned to the United States to earn a Ph.D. in microbiology at the University of California, Davis.