Beverly Wendland, professor and chair of the Department of Biology at Johns Hopkins, has been appointed interim dean of the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, effective July 1. She replaces Katherine Newman, who will become provost and senior vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
President Ronald J. Daniels and Provost Robert C. Lieberman announced Wendland's appointment today in an email to faculty, staff, and students.
"We are delighted and grateful to her for taking on this important leadership role," they wrote.
"We look forward to Dr. Wendland's leadership of the Krieger School during this next phase of its growth and development."
A Johns Hopkins faculty member since 1998, Wendland is intimately familiar with the Krieger School and its operations. She became chair of the biology department in 2009, leading faculty, staff, and students during a period of renewal.
Throughout her tenure at Johns Hopkins, Wendland has supported graduate and undergraduate students, serving as their mentor and a collaborator. An advocate for the use of interdisciplinary research, she served on the lab advisory committee during the construction of the new Undergraduate Teaching Laboratories, designed to foster collaboration across the Homewood campus. Wendland was also a member of the Krieger School's advisory committee on the status of women.
A recipient of funding from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, Wendland and her team study yeast cells to find out what they can teach us about human diseases, including some forms of cancer. Her work includes seeking new targets for treatment, such as enhanced delivery of gene therapies.
Wendland earned her bachelor's degree in bioengineering at the University of California, San Diego, and her Ph.D. in neurosciences at Stanford University. She joined the Department of Biology at Johns Hopkins after completing her postdoctoral studies at the University of California, San Diego.
A search for the next dean of the Krieger School will be launched soon, Daniels and Lieberman said, and the process is expected to last well into the next academic year.
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