Six Women Appointed to New Administrative Posts in Higher Education

Miriam Nelson was named deputy chief sustainability officer and the director of the Sustainability Institute at the University of New Hampshire in Durham. She will begin her new duties in March 2016. Dr. Nelson currently is a professor of nutrition science and policy and associate dean of the College of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts University in Massachusetts. She is the founding director of the John Hancock Research Center on Physical Activity, Nutrition, and Obesity Prevention at Tufts.

Dr. Nelson is the author of 10 books including the bestseller Strong Women Stay Young (Bantam Books, 1997). She is a graduate of the University of Vermont and holds a Ph.D. from Tufts University.

Odetta Johnson was named director of public safety and chief of police at North Carolina Central University in Durham. She was a major in the police department of Richmond, Virginia, and previously was interim chief of police at Virginia Union University in Richmond.

Johnson is a veteran of the second Gulf War, where she earned a Bronze Star. She is a graduate of North Carolina Central University with a degree in public administration.

Ellen Purpus is the new assistant vice president for enterprise and innovation at the University of Nevada, Reno. She is the former director of the Office of Technology Transfer for the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, which is affiliated with the School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Purpus is a graduate of Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. She earned a Ph.D. in pathology and cell biology at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in experimental immunology at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.

Anna Justice was named assistant dean for development in the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences at West Virginia University. She was a development officer at Loyola University in New Orleans.

Justice is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she majored in music. She earned a master’s degree in fundraising management from Boston University.

Sheena Howell was appointed director of development and external relations for the College of Business at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. She was director of development for the athletics department at the university.

Howell is a graduate of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, where she majored in business administration and marketing. She was a member of the university’s track team.

Elizabeth Small was named general counsel at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. For the past two years, Small has served as general counsel at Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts.

Small is a graduate of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. She earned her law degree at Boston University.