Universities Announce the Appointment of Eight Women to Dean Positions

Ah-Hyung Park has been named the Ronald and Valerie Sugar Dean of the Samueli School of Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles, effective September 1. She has been serving as the Lenfest Earth Institute Professor of Climate Change and chair of the department of earth and environmental engineering at Columbia University in New York City, where she has been a faculty member since 2007.

Dr. Park earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in chemical and biological engineering from the University of British Columbia. She holds a doctorate in chemical and biomolecular engineering from Ohio State University.

Hopi Hoekstra will be the next Edgerley Family Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University, effective August 1. Dr. Hoekstra is currently the Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology in the departments of molecular and cellular biology and organismic and evolutionary biology. She also serves as the curator of mammals in the Museum of Comparative Zoology. She has taught at Harvard since 2007.

Dr. Hoekstra received a bachelor’s degree in integrative biology from the University of California, Berkeley. She completed a Ph.D. in zoology as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute predoctoral fellow at the University of Washington.

Jill Dixon was selected as the new dean of the university libraries at West Chester University in Pennsylvania, effective August 7. Most recently, she served as the interim dean of libraries at Binghamton University in New York, where she spent 15 years of her career.

Dixon is a graduate of the University of Delaware, where she majored in international relations and history. She holds a master of library science degree from Indiana University.

Twinette Johnson was named dean of the David A. Clarke School of Law at the University of the District of Columbia. She has been interim dean since August 2022. Prior to joining the faculty in 2017, Professor Johnson was an associate professor of law and director of the Academic Success Program at Southern Illinois University School of Law. Professor Johnson’s research interests include higher education access policy and learning theory models in legal education.

Dr. Johnson holds a bachelor’s degree in English and a Ph.D. from Saint Louis University. She earned a juris doctorate at Tulane University in New Orleans.

Mary Margaret Frank has been selected as the next dean of Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, effective August 15. She has been serving as senior associate dean for faculty development at the Darden School of Business of the University of Virginia. Prior to joining the Darden faculty in 2002, Dr. Frank taught at the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago.

Dr. Frank holds a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree, and a Ph.D., all from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Heather Woofter was appointed dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin, effective August 15. She has been serving as the Sam and Marilyn Fox Professor and director of the College of Architecture and the Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design at Washington University in St. Louis. Prior to her tenure at Washington University, she was an assistant professor at Virginia Tech.

Professor Woofter earned a bachelor of architecture degree from Virginia Tech in 1991. She holds a master of architecture degree from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University.

Sharonda Ragland will serve as the acting dean for the School of Arts and Sciences at Virginia Union University in Richmond. She is an assistant professor of mathematics and interim chair of mass communications at the university. Earlier, she was assistant dean for undergraduate studies in the School of Arts and Sciences.

Ragland holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration and a master’s degree in applied and computational mathematics from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. She is completing work on a doctorate in education from Regent University in Virginia Beach.

Camille Su-Lin Johnson is the new dean of the College of Letters, Arts, and Social Sciences at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. She has been a professor of management and associate dean for research and faculty success at San Jose State University in California.

Dr. Johnson received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. She holds a master’s degree in applied psychology from Claremont Graduate University in California and Ph.D. in psychology from Ohio State University.