Mary Beth Mudgett to assume post of senior associate dean for the natural sciences Sept. 1
Mary Beth Mudgett, professor of biology in the School of Humanities and Sciences, has been appointed senior associate dean for the natural sciences, effective Sept. 1.
She succeeds Peter Michelson, the Luke Blossom Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences and professor of physics, who is stepping down at the end of August after four years in the post.
Mudgett currently serves as senior associate dean for undergraduate educational initiatives. In this role, she has led an effort to reshape introductory science and math courses to better support students with different levels of preparation for success in STEM majors. She also has overseen an initiative to enhance undergraduate teaching, including a schoolwide mentorship program for junior faculty.
As co-chair of Stanford’s Academic Continuity Group, Mudgett helped the university blaze a path through the thicket of teaching challenges posed by the pandemic. She helped to solve problems involving online learning and curriculum development and to create the infrastructure and support needed for faculty, staff, and students to safely return to in-person instruction. In addition, she directed the Dean’s Fellows Program, which provided teaching and research opportunities for graduate students completing their degrees and facing a job market made challenging by the pandemic.
“Mary Beth has shown creativity, grit, compassion, and diligence as a leader during these uncertain times,” said Debra Satz, the Vernon R. and Lysbeth Warren Anderson Dean of the School of Humanities and Sciences. “She is dedicated to excellence in the natural sciences and, in the spirit of the university’s founding principles, to the idea that education serves the common good.”
Mudgett also holds several other university positions: She is a co-chair of the Stanford Summer Program Committee as well as a member of the Faculty Senate; the Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access in a Learning Environment Education Committee; the University Accreditation Advisory Committee; and the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Undergraduate Advisory Council.
Investigating plant–pathogen interactions
As a biologist, Mudgett studies the molecular interactions between plants and pathogens. She is interested in elucidating how bacterial pathogens shut off or evade plant immune systems, with the goal of developing new biotechnology to combat crop diseases. She earned a doctorate in biochemistry from UCLA in 1994, served as a postdoctoral scholar there and at UC Berkeley, and joined the Stanford faculty in 2002.
Mudgett looks forward to working more closely with faculty, staff, and students in the natural science community. “Our natural science departments are at the forefront of discovery, tool development, application, and training,” she said. “I am excited to help support and advance their core missions in research, teaching, and mentoring.
“I’d like to build upon Peter’s efforts in fostering an inclusive, international community of scholars and supporting the development of core instrument facilities. I’d also like to continue my efforts in reimagining introductory STEM education at Stanford and launching new capstone opportunities in the natural sciences for our next generation of undergraduate scholars.”
The Stanford Friends University Fellow in Undergraduate Education, Mudgett has been recognized with a number of awards and honors, including the H&S Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching, two Phi Beta Kappa teaching prizes, the Bioscience Faculty Excellence in Diversity Award, and the Associated Students of Stanford University’s Teacher of the Year award.
Mudgett is passionate about science education and mentoring junior colleagues. As president of the International Society for Plant Microbe Interactions, she launched a social networking platform and a series of virtual symposia to enable colleagues from around the world to connect and stay informed about research advances during the pandemic.
Advocate for international collaboration
During his time in the role, Michelson oversaw the launch of the Stanford Science Fellows, a postdoctoral program that supports interdisciplinary work among promising young scientists from diverse backgrounds. The highly competitive program was developed as part of the university’s long-range vision. It provides fellows with an $83,000 annual stipend, as well as additional funding, and encourages bold approaches to foundational research in the life sciences, physical sciences, and mathematics. Fellows pursue their own research projects, collaborating with colleagues across disciplines.
“Peter helped design and implement a leading postdoctoral program that recruits some of the most talented early-career scientists from around the world,” Satz said. “He has been a thoughtful leader of the natural sciences, and we have been fortunate to benefit from his moral advocacy for international science collaboration.”
Michelson conducts research on high-energy astrophysics and leads the international team that built and operates the Large Area Telescope on the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope spacecraft. He has been a passionate advocate for international collaboration and co-chairs Challenges for International Scientific Partnerships, a project of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, with Arthur Bienenstock, professor emeritus of photon science. The project promotes the benefits of international scientific collaboration—a goal that Michelson and Bienenstock have been especially vocal about in light of the global imperative to fight COVID-19.
Michelson was a sharp critic of the China Initiative, a national security program launched by the Trump administration to prosecute economic espionage and trade secret theft by Chinese government agents. The program was widely considered ineffective and was denounced for fostering an atmosphere of suspicion around researchers of Chinese descent. Earlier this year, the Department of Justice announced its plans to effectively end the program.
“Serving as the senior associate dean for the natural sciences has been incredibly rewarding for me, especially the opportunities I’ve had to learn about the diversity of research being done by scientists at H&S,” Michelson said. “They really are a world-class group!”