Eleven Women Taking on New Administrative Posts at Colleges and Universities

Nancy Everett was named chief executive officer and chief investment officer for the new Virginia Commonwealth University Investment Management Company. The new foundation will advise the university on the management of its assets. Everett was a senior adviser at Lombard Odier Investment Management.

Everett is a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University and has served on the university’s board of visitors.

Kimberly A. Harvey was appointed the inaugural executive director of retention and student success at Gannon University in Erie, Pennsylvania. She was director of new student program at the State University of New York at Geneseo.

Harvey is at graduate of SUNY-Fredonia. She holds a master’s degree in college student personnel administration from Canisius College in Buffalo and is expected to be awarded a doctorate in education from the University of Rochester this coming spring.

Kim Conaty was appointed curator at the Rose Art Museum on the campus of Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. She was the Sue and Eugene Mercy Jr. Assistant Curator of Drawings and Prints at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. She joined the staff at MOMA in 2008.

Conaty is a graduate of Middlebury College in Vermont. She holds a master’s degrees from Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and is currently studying for a Ph.D. at the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University.

Katherine Bassard was named senior vice provost for faculty affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University. She is a professor of English at the university. Dr. Bassard joined the university’s faculty in 1999 and was promoted to full professor in 2010. Earlier, she taught at the University of California, Berkeley.

Professor Bassard is a graduate of Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She holds a master’s degree from Virginia Commonwealth University and a Ph.D. in English from Rutgers University in New Jersey.

Vita C. Pickrum was appointed vice president of institutional advancement at Delaware State University in Dover. She was also named president of the Delaware State University Foundation. She has been on the staff of the development office at the university since 2008.

Pickrum holds a bachelor’s degree in communications and education and a master’s degree in city and regional planning from Howard University in Washington, D.C. She is currently studying for a doctorate in educational leadership at Delaware State.

Sharyne Miller was named chief information officer at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, effective January 4, 2016. Since 2013, she has been executive director of information technology for Bergen County Community College in New Jersey.

Miller is a graduate of Dominican College in Orangeburg, New York. She holds a master degree in telecommunications from Iona College in New Rochelle, New York, and is currently in the educational doctorate program at Northeastern University in Boston.

Melinda Cotten was promoted to assistant vice provost for sponsored projects and research compliance at Rice University in Houston, Texas. Since 2012, she has served as director of the Office of Sponsored Research at the university.

Earlier in her career, Cotten was executive director of the Office of Sponsored Programs at the MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas. She is a graduate of Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro.

Farnaz Khadem was appointed chief communications officer at the California Institute of Technology. For the past five years, Khadem has been director of communication for the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, a Department of Energy facility operated by Stanford University.

Khadem holds a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

Rachel Pereira was named director of equal opportunity and Title IX coordinator at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. She has been serving as an assistant district attorney for the city of Philadelphia.

Dr. Pereira is a graduate of Hunter College and the University of Pennsylvania Law School. She also holds an educational doctorate from Rutgers University.

Constance Mallette is the new associate vice chancellor for financial planning and budget at Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina.  She was director of business information systems at North Carolina Central University in Durham.

Mallette is a graduate of North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro. She holds a master’s degree in rehabilitation counseling from Winston-Salem State University.

Jean Mercer was named assistant vice chancellor for research and director of the Office of Sponsored Programs at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. She was director of grant services in the Office of Research Administration at Indiana University.

Mercer is a graduate of the University of Colorado, where she majored in business administration. She holds a master’s degree in research administration from the University of Central Florida.