Eighteen Women With New Administrative Responsibilities in American Higher Education

Dee Uwono was named Title IX coordinator at the University of Hawaii Manoa. She has been serving as the interim dean of students at Honolulu Community College. From 2007 to 2o14, Dr. Uwono was director of the Judicial Affairs Office at the University of Hawaii Manoa.

Dr. Uwono holds a bachelor’s degree in zoology and a master’s degree in educational administration from the University of Hawaii. She earned a doctorate in educational leadership at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

Deb Thomas was appointed interim vice chancellor for business and finance at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. She has been serving as senior associate vice chancellor. Thomas joined the staff at the medical center in 2006.

Thomas is a graduate of Illinois State University, where she majored in chemistry. She holds a master of public administration degree from the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

Deanne Stephens Nuwer is the new associate dean of the College of Arts and Letters at the Gulf Coast campus of the University of Southern Mississippi in Long Beach. She joined the faculty at the university in 1998 and has been serving as an associate professor of history. Dr. Nuwer latest book is Plague Among the Magnolias: The 1878 Yellow Fever Epidemic in Mississippi (University of Alabama Press, 2009).

Dr. Nuwer holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in American history from the University of Southern Mississippi.

Bernadine M. Douglas is the new vice president for alumni and college relations at Berea College in Kentucky. She was vice president for external relations at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona, Florida.

Douglas is a graduate of the University of Florida and holds an MBA from the Webster University campus in Longwood, Florida.

Carmen Suarez was named chief diversity officer at Portland State University in Oregon. She held a similar post at the University of Idaho. She will begin her new job on September 8.

Dr. Suarez holds bachelor’s and master’s degree in history and a doctorate in higher education administration.

Judith E. Bergtraum was named vice chancellor for facilities planning, construction, and management for the City University of New York. She has been serving in the post on an interim basis since last July. Before joining the CUNY staff, Dr. Bergtraum was first deputy commissioner of the New York City Department of Transportation.

Bergtraum is a graduate of the State University of New York at Cortland. She holds a master’s degree in special education from Boston University and a law degree from Brooklyn Law School.

Monique Guillory-Winfield was named vice president for academic affairs at the College of Saint Elizabeth in Morristown, New Jersey. She has been serving as vice president for academic and student affairs for the Southern University system in Louisiana. Dr. Guillory-Winfield is the co-editor of Soul: Black Power, Politics and Pleasure (New York University Press, 1998).

Dr. Guillory-Winfield holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from New York University.

Kathryn Roeder, a professor of statistics and computational biology at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, was named vice provost for faculty at the university. She has been on the faculty at Carnegie Mellon since 1994 after teaching at Yale University.

Dr. Roeder is a summa cum laude graduate of the University of Idaho, where she majored in wildlife resources. She holds a Ph.D. in statistics from Pennsylvania State University.

Michelle Puetz was appointed the Pick-Laudati Curator of Media Arts at the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.

Dr. Puetz is a graduate of Tufts University in Massachusetts. She earned a Ph.D. in cinema and media studies at the University of Chicago.

Gail Berson is the new vice president for enrollment and admission at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. She has served in the post on an interim basis since April. Before joining the staff at Mount Holyoke, Berson was vice president for enrollment and marketing at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts.

Berson is a graduate of Bowdoin College in Maine, where she majored in art history. She holds a master’s degree in integrated marketing from Emerson College in Boston.

Jennifer Finney Boylan was named special assistant to the president of Colby College in Maine. Boylan served on the faculty at Colby College from 1988 to 2014. In 2014 she the Anna Quindlen Writer-In-Residence at Barnard College in New York City.

Boylan is the author of She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders (Broadway Books, 2003). She is a graduate of Wesleyan University and a master’s degree in the creative writing program at Johns Hopkins University.

Carol Booth was named campus ombudsperson at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She has been serving as a senior staff attorney in the Student Legal Services Office at the university.

Booth is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the Boston College Law School.

Juanita M. Holler was appointed associate vice president for facilities management and development at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. She has been serving as associate vice chancellor for facilities and campus services at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She has held that post since 2008.

Holler holds a bachelor’s degree and a master of architecture degree from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

Sandra Millard was appointed interim vice provost and director of libraries at the University of Delaware. She is the associate university librarian for services, outreach, and assessment at the university. Dr. Millard joined the staff at the university in 1988.

Dr. Millard is a graduate of Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania. She earned a master of library science degree from Rutgers University in New Jersey, an a doctorate in educational leadership at the University of Delaware.

Becky Jo Gesteland was named interim associate dean of the College of Arts & Humanities at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah. She is a professor of English at the university and has been on the faculty for the past 15 years.

Dr. Gesteland holds a master’s degree in English from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Ph.D. in American studies from the University of Utah.

Joanne Esparza was appointed interim director of the Physical Science Laboratory at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. She has served as deputy director of the Physical Science Laboratory since 2012. Esparza joined the university’s staff in 1987.

Esparza is a graduate of Stanford University in California, where she majored in mathematics.

Sara Hodges was named associate dean of the Graduate School at the University of Oregon. She is a professor of psychology and has served as director of graduate studies in psychology. She joined the university’s faculty in 1995

Professor Hodges is a graduate of Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia.

Jill P. Mesirov was appointed associate vice chancellor for computational health sciences and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine. She was associate director and chief informatics officer a the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard University.

The former associate director of the American Mathematical Society, Dr. Mesirov earned her Ph.D. in mathematics at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts.