Colleges and Universities Announce the Appointment of Ten Women to Administrative Posts

Deborah Crawford will become the next vice chancellor for research at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, effective August 1. She has been serving as vice president for research, innovation, and economic impact at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.

Dr. Crawford is a graduate of the University of Glasgow in Scotland, where she majored in electronic and electrical engineering. She holds a Ph.D. in information systems engineering from the University of Bradford in England.

Melissa Marks was appointed director of medical services at Princeton’s University Health Services. Dr. Marks was most recently president of medical staff at the Greater Baltimore Medical Center, a community health care system in Maryland. She was the organization’s first female chief-of-staff.

Dr. Marks is a graduate of Princeton University and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.

Claudia Donald has been named interim chief marketing officer at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She has been serving as executive director of digital marketing and online communications at the university. She joined the staff at the university in 2005.

Donald is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she majored in food and natural resources. She holds a master’s degree in computer information systems from Boston University.

Laurel Gift is the new assistant vice chancellor for compliance, investigation, and ethics at the University of Pittsburgh. Before joining the university, Gift served as senior deputy attorney general for the Office of the Attorney General of Pennsylvania and as an Allegheny County assistant district attorney.

Gift is a graduate of the University of California, Santa Cruz. She earned a juris doctorate at the Hasting College of Law of the University of California in San Francisco.

Jasmin Sessoms has been named interim director of alumni affairs at Fayetteville State University in North Carolina. Prior to her appointment, Sessoms served as assistant director of development at the university.

Sessoms is a magna cum laude graduate of Fayetteville State University, where she majored in mass communications.

Sarah Steinkamp was named chief of staff in the Office of the President of DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. She has been serving as assistant dean of strategic and educational initiatives in the Division of Student Affairs at Washington University in St. Louis.

Dt. Steinkamp holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Wells College n Aurora, New York. She earned a master’s degree in health education from Ithaca College in New York and a doctorate in education from Southern Illinois University.

Audree Chase-Mayoral is the new associate dean of community education at Northampton Community College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. She has been serving as associate director of global distance programs in the College of Education at Lehigh University in Bethlehem.

Chase-Mayoral is a graduate of Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where she majored in Russian/Soviet studies. She earned a master’s degree in education at Lehigh University.

Samara Hough was named director of the Center for Gender and Sexuality at the University of Michigan-Flint. Previously, she worked at the Michigan State University Center for Survivors and at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor Center for the Education of Women and the Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center.

Hough earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan. She holds a master’s degree from Wayne State University in Detroit.

Sarah Myers was appointed director of the Children’s Center for Communication and Development at the University of Southern Mississippi. She had been serving as the center’s interim director. She joined the center as a speech-language pathologist in 2010, immediately following a 5-year stint as a volunteer and then graduate assistant for the center.

Myers earned a master’s degree at the University of Southern Mississippi.

Susan Klusmeier will be the new vice provost for academic success at the University of Kansas. She has served in various roles at the university since 2016. For the past 11 months, Dr. Klusmeier has been interim vice provost for undergraduate studies.

Dr. Klusmeier earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She holds a master’s degree in education from the University of Kansas and a doctorate in education from the University of Pennsylvania.