Berkeleyan

Summer shines on a bumper crop of new deans
Appointments—at Haas, Goldman, Extension, Chemistry, L&S, CED, and CNR—await formal approval this week

By Carol Ness, Public Affairs | 17 July 2008

Seven new deans are taking the reins of leadership in time for the start of the fall semester in August — five of them permanently, and two on an interim basis.

Richard Lyons, a business professor and currency-market specialist, is back in the saddle as dean of the Haas School of Business, where he previously served as acting dean.

Mark Schlissel, professor of immunology, biochemistry, and molecular biology, is taking the helm of the Division of Biological Sciences in the College of Letters and Science.

Richard Mathies, professor of chemistry and director of the Center for Analytical Biotechnology, will oversee the College of Chemistry.

Diana Wu, who has been acting dean of University Extension, will now be dean.

J. Keith Gilless, a forest-economics professor who has been acting dean of the College of Natural Resources, will now fill the deanship.

John Quigley, professor of public policy and economics, will serve as interim dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy.

And Sam Davis, architecture professor emeritus, is the new interim dean of the College of Environmental Design.

“We are extraordinarily delighted about this absolutely stellar group of deans,” said Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost George Breslauer in announcing the appointments. “These exceptionally talented and accomplished individuals are recognized leaders in their respective fields, and Berkeley is very fortunate to have them.”

Approval of pay and benefits for six of the seven deans was on the agenda for this week’s meeting of the UC Board of Regents in Santa Barbara. At our presstime, the appointments were to be considered, in turn, by the compensation committee (in closed session on Tuesday, and in open session on Thursday) and the full board (in open session on Thursday).

Quigley’s recommendation, the seventh and latest to be made, will go to the board soon.

Outlining the many qualifications the seven bring to their decanal posts, Breslauer said, “The depth and breadth of their expertise will enhance the disciplines and programs they represent, advance the interests of their individual schools and colleges, and serve well the university, its multiple constituencies, and the broader higher-education community. Chancellor Birgeneau and I are eagerly looking forward to helping them achieve the goals they have set for their deanships.”

A look at each new dean

Rich Lyons (Courtesy Haas School of Business)

In taking over the leadership at Haas, Rich Lyons is returning to Berkeley from a leave during which he has been chief learning officer at the Goldman Sachs investment-banking firm in New York. He replaces Tom Campbell, who stepped down as dean on July 1 and will take a teaching post at Chapman University School of Law in Orange, Calif., and has announced his candidacy for governor of California.

Berkeley is where Lyons started out, completing his B.S. in business in 1982 before heading to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a Ph.D. in economics (’87) and then to a teaching post at Columbia.

He landed back in Berkeley as an assistant professor in 1993 and held the S.K. and Angela Chan Chair in Global Management before returning to New York in 2006. He also served as executive associate dean at the Haas School, and was acting dean from December 2004 to November 2005.

His most recent book, The Microstructure Approach to Exchange Rates, was published in 2001 by MIT Press.

Mark Schlissel (Peg Skorpinski photo)

At the Biological Sciences Division, Mark Schlissel will oversee the largest concentration of biology researchers and teachers on campus. He replaces W. Geoffrey Owen, who served from 2002 until retiring last month.

After earning his B.A. at Princeton University (1979) and his M.D. and Ph.D. in physiological chemistry at Johns Hopkins (’86), Schlissel did his residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital and taught there until moving to Berkeley as a professor of biochemistry and immunology in 1999. His specialties are immunology and pathogenesis, or the mechanisms through which disease is caused. He’s the current beneficiary of a National Institutes of Health merit award.

At the College of Chemistry, Richard Mathies steps into the post held by Clayton Heathcock, emeritus professor of organic chemistry and chief scientist of QB3, the three-campus California Institute for Quantitative Biomedical Research. Heathcock served as dean from 1999 to 2005, and picked up the reins again on an interim basis in January after Charles Harris stepped down.

Richard Mathies (Michael Barnes photo)

Mathies has taught at Berkeley since 1976, landing here after earning a B.S. in chemistry from the University of Washington (1968), an M.S. (’70) and Ph.D. (’73) in physical chemistry from Cornell, and completing a postdoc at Yale.

His work involves using extremely short laser pulses to take rapid snapshots of chemical reactions, which has led to the development of new dyes and a miniaturized lab-on-a-chip that speeded the sequencing of the human genome. These mini-labs are used today in automated DNA sequencing, rapid detection of disease organisms, and criminal forensics.

More recently, he has turned his miniaturized chemistry lab into an experiment that will travel to Mars aboard the European ExoMars rover mission, set to launch in 2013. The experiment tests for the presence of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, and could provide definitive proof of life on the Red Planet.

Diana Wu (Peg Skorpinski photo)

At University Extension, Diana Wu assumes a mantle of leadership she’s been wearing on an acting basis since early 2007. She replaces James Sherwood, who stepped down as dean of Berkeley’s continuing-education efforts.

Wu arrived at Berkeley from the University of Washington in 2004 with a long record of experience in educational outreach. Her career started with an A.B. in psychology from Stanford (1984), an M.A. in educational psychology (’87), and an Ed.D. in higher education from UCLA (’94).

At the College of Natural Resources, Keith Gilless has been made dean after serving as acting dean since Paul Ludden left Berkeley in 2007.

Gilless earned his B.S. in forestry from Michigan State University and worked in forestry jobs in Maryland, Idaho, and Minnesota before heading to the University of Wisconsin at Madison for a Ph.D. in forestry and agricultural economics. He joined the Berkeley faculty in 1983 and holds joint appointments in the departments of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management and Agricultural and Resource Economics.

Keith Gilless (Peg Skorpinski photo)

As executive associate dean at CNR, Gilless played a key role in the strategic growth of the college, which has doubled its enrollment over the last five years. He is currently helping efforts to establish an academic exchange program between Berkeley and Portuguese scientists in ecosystem management and related fields.

At the Goldman School, John Quigley is interim dean, replacing Michael Nacht, who had served as dean since 1998 before recently stepping down.

A specialist in urban economics and the integration of real estate, mortgage, and financial markets, Quigley holds appointments in the Goldman School, the Haas School of Business, and the Department of Economics, where he is the I. Donald Terner Distinguished Professor.

Educated at the U.S. Air Force Academy (B.S. 1964), the University of Stockholm (M.Sc. ’85), and Harvard University (A.M. ’70, Ph.D. ’71), he taught at Yale and was visiting professor at the University of Gothenberg before coming to Berkeley in 1979. He serves as director of the Berkeley Program on Housing and Urban Policy.

John Quigley

At the College of Environmental Design, Berkeley- and Yale-educated Sam Davis is interim dean filling the post recently vacated by Harrison Fraker, who had served as dean since 1996. A member of the Berkeley faculty since 1971, Davis has served as associate dean for environmental design and currently is a Professor of the Graduate School in architecture.

A working architect as well as a professor, Davis won a Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship for his work on affordable housing and housing for special needs, including his design of a 100-bed homeless shelter in Contra Costa County and San Francisco’s Larkin Street Youth Center, the nation's first housing for homeless youth with HIV or AIDS.

Details about compensation for all new administrators are available at the UC regents’ salaries-and-compensation website.