Seven Women Named to Administrative Positions in Higher Education

Frances Keene, director of student conduct at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, was promoted to the new post of chief of operations for five units within the Division of Student Affairs. She will be responsible for housing and residential life, dining services, career services, fraternity and sorority life, and student conduct.

Keene is a graduate of the College of William and Mary. She holds a master’s degree from the University of Virginia and is currently pursuing a doctorate in educational leadership at Virginia Tech.

Lisa J. Laplante was named interim director of the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center at the University of Connecticut. She has been serving as a visiting assistant professor and the Richard D. Tulisano Human Rights Fellow at the university’s School of Law.

Laplante is a graduate of Brown University and the New York University School of Law. She also holds a master’s degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Luisa DiPietro was named associate dean for faculty affairs at the College of Dentistry of the University of Illinois at Chicago. In 2006 she was named the founding director of the college’s Center for Wound Healing and Tissue Regeneration. She will continue in that role.

Dr. DiPietro is a graduate of the College of Dentistry and also holds a Ph.D. in immunology from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Margaret P. Garner, associate professor and assistant dean for health education in the College of Community Health Sciences at the University of Alabama, was named director-at-large of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, formerly the American Dietetic Association. The academy, with more than 72,000 members, is the world’s largest professional organization for food and nutrition specialists.

Garner is a graduate of Georgia Southern College and holds a master’s degree from the University of Tennessee.

Fidelia Nnadi was appointed director of the Office of Diversity and Inclusion in the College of Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Central Florida. She has been serving as an associate professor of civil, environmental, and construction engineering at the university.

A graduate of the University of Nigeria, Dr. Nnadi earned a Ph.D. in water resources engineering at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario.

Laura Neff-Henderson was promoted to communications manager of human resources at Virginia Tech. She was a communications project coordinator for the university’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. She also teaches a media writing course in the department of communication at the university.

Neff-Henderson is a graduate of Radford University in Virginia. She holds a master’s degree in English from Virginia Commonwealth University.

Sandy Botham, who has served as head coach for women’s basketball at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee since 1996, is taking a new post at the university in alumni relations.

Botham holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Notre Dame.