Following one year of interim service, Aneika L. Simmons was named the permanent dean of the College of Business at Prairie View A&M University in Texas. Before coming to PVAMU, Dr. Simmons was a professor of management at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas, for nearly two decades. Her expertise includes human resource management, organizational behavior, strategic management, and business policy.
Dr. Simmons earned her bachelor’s degree in management information systems with a minor in finance from the University of Texas at Austin. She holds a master’s degree in speech communication from the University of Houston and a Ph.D. in management from Texas A&M University.
Kimberly “Kim” Petersen has been promoted from interim dean to permanent dean of the Lloyd International Honors College at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Prior to her interim appointment, Dr. Petersen was faculty director of the university’s Office of Undergraduate Research, Scholarship, and Creativity. She has been a faculty member with UNC Greensboro’s department of chemistry since 2011 and achieved the rank of full professor in 2024.
Dr. Petersen received her bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She earned a master’s degree in chemistry from American University in Washington, D.C., and Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. She completed postdoctoral training at the California Institute of Technology.
Julia Bear was named interim dean of the College of Business at Stony Brook University of the State University of New York System. A full professor of organizational behavior, Dr. Bear has been serving as the college’s associate dean for research. Her scholarship centers on the intersection of gender and negotiation and the dynamics underlying gender gaps in organization. She is the co-author of The Caregiving Ambition: What It Is and Why It Matters At Home and Work (Oxford University Press, 2022).
Dr. Bear is a graduate of Stanford University, where she majored in English literature. She holds an MBA from Baruch College of the City University of New York and a Ph.D. in organizational behavior from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Christina Spears Brown has been appointed dean of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She comes to her new role from the University of Kentucky, where she currently serves as a professor of developmental psychology and associate dean of student engagement and success in the College of Arts and Sciences. As a scholar, Dr. Brown has conducted extensive research on children’s and adolescents’ understanding of discrimination, stereotypes, and social identity. She is the author of several books including Unraveling Bias
Dr. Brown is a graduate of Belmont University in Nashville. She earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in developmental psychology from the University of Texas at Austin.