The head of the University of Utah’s Physics and Astronomy Department has been named Dean of the Graduate School.
Dave Kieda helped to build the U’s astronomy faculty by recruiting new talent from across the country. He also has research projects underway with observatories across the country.
But he says he’ll have important responsibilities for other non-science disciplines in his new job, especially in making up for cuts in federal funding.
“It’s maybe not so bad in terms of science and engineering," Kieda says. "There are companies and industry that are also interested in funding research and can help out in funding graduate research. But the group that takes the most difficult hit from a federal reduction in funding is the humanities and social sciences.”
Kieda says recruiting a diverse group of graduate students is another important responsibility of the new job as well as helping to create new, inter-disciplinary graduate programs.
Kieda replaces Charles Wight, who is now the president of Weber State University. He’ll move into the new job August 1st.
