New Administrative Appointments for Four Women at Universities

Aliza Lakhani was appointed regional dean and CEO of the Toronto campus of the Boston-based Northeastern University. The new international campus will open in the first quarter of 2018. She has been serving as director of business development at DMZ, a business incubator at Ryerson University in Toronto.

Lakhani is a graduate of the University of Waterloo, where she majored in mathematics. She holds an MBA from the Stern School of Business at New York University.

Betsey Smith was named interim director of the Research and Curriculum Unit at Mississippi State University in Starkville. She has been serving as the unit’s associate director. Smith joined the staff in 2007 as an instructional design specialist.

Smith is a graduate of Louisiana State University, where she majored in family and consumer science. She holds a master’s degree in education and school counseling from the University of Louisiana at Monroe.

Pamela Jackson was appointed interim provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at Fayetteville State University in North Carolina. She has been serving since 2015 as dean of the College of Business and Economics.

Dr. Jackson is a graduate of Albion College in Michigan, where she majored in sociology and psychology. She holds a master of public administration degree from Troy University in Alabama, an MBA from Fayetteville State University, and a Ph.D. information technology from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

Sara L. Nichols is the new director of strategic initiatives for the John Muir Institute for the Environment at the University of California, Davis. She has been serving as a Transatlantic Fellow for the Robert Bosch Foundation. Earlier, she worked as an air pollution specialist for the California Air Resources Board.

Nichols is a graduate of the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she majored in environmental studies. She holds a master’s degree in environmental economics and policy from Duke University.