Six Women in Higher Education Who Have Been Appointed to Dean Positions

Amy Friedman Wilson has been named the new dean of the Creighton University School of Pharmacy and Health Professions in Omaha. Dr. Wilson has been serving as interim dean since January 1. She was senior associate dean for operations and associate dean for the School of Pharmacy and Health Professions Phoenix Campus. Dr. Wilson joined the faculty at the university in 2000 and served for 10 years as director of Creighton’s Center for Drug Information and Evidence-Based Practice, beginning in 2005.

Dean Wilson earned her pharmacy doctorate from Creighton University in 1995 and then completed a clinical pharmacy residency at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.

Celeste M. Watkins-Hayes was appointed interim dean of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. She has been serving as the associate dean for academic affairs. Dr. Watkins-Hayes is the Jean E. Fairfax Collegiate Professor of Public Policy and a professor of sociology at the university. She is the author of Remaking a Life: How Women Living with HIV/AIDS Confront Inequality (University of California Press, 2019).

Professor Watkins-Hayes is a graduate of Spelman College in Atlanta. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in sociology from Harvard University.

Christina Economos, a professor who holds the New Balance Chair in Childhood Nutrition and is chair of the Division of Nutrition Interventions, Communication, and Behavior Change at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University in Boston, has been named interim dean of the Friedman School.

Professor Economos is a graduate of Boston University. She holds a master’s degree in applied physiology and nutrition from Columbia University and a Ph.D. in nutritional biochemistry from Tufts University.

T. Camille Martin-Thomsen was named dean of faculty and vice president of academic affairs at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She was the acting associate provost for academic affairs at Pratt Institute in New York, where she also taught interior design and art and design education.

Dean Martin-Thomsen is a graduate of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. She earned a master of architecture degree from Washington University in St. Louis.

Vrushali Bokil has been named interim dean of the College of Science at Oregon State University. She is the college’s associate dean for research and graduate studies. Dr. Bokil is an expert in computational and applied mathematics, numerical analysis, and mathematical biology. She joined the Oregon State faculty in 2006 as an assistant professor of mathematics.

Dr. Bokil holds a master’s degree in mathematics from New Mexico State University and a Ph.D. n mathematics from the University of Houston.

Mary M. White has been promoted to dean of students at South Carolina State University. For 14 years she served as student service program coordinator in the Dr. Emily E. Clyburn Honors College at the university.

White received a bachelor’s degree in sociology and criminal justice administration from Claflin University in Orangeburg, South Carolina. She earned a master’s degree in transportation and civil engineering from South Carolina State University.