May 24, 2023
Dear Members of Our Campus Community,
I am pleased to announce the appointment of Professor Michael Miller as our next Dean of Undergraduate Education in the College of Letters and Science and Associate Vice Chancellor for Undergraduate Education, effective June 1, 2023.
We are grateful for the efforts of EVC David Marshall and our search advisory committee, chaired by Professor Omer Blaes, for conducting a rigorous search for this important position. The members of the committee are listed below. We would also like to thank the Academic Senate and all of the members of our campus community who provided important consultation, input, and advice throughout this search process.
Dr. Miller has been serving as Interim Dean of Undergraduate Education in the College of Letters and Science and Interim Associate Vice Chancellor for Undergraduate Education since October of 2021. He has been part of our faculty in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences since 2002, after receiving his Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuroscience from Dartmouth College and serving as a professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Dr. Miller is also vice director of our Sage Center for the Study of the Mind, co-leader of the Cognitive Neuroscience Task Order within our Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies since 2008, and co-director of our Kavli Summer Institute in Cognitive Neuroscience. His research is focused on the psychological and neural processes underlying human memory and decision-making. In addition, he has spent the past 27 years studying the psychological and neural effects of patients undergoing callosotomies (split-brain patients). He is a Fellow of the Psychonomic Society, an elected member of the Memory Disorders Research Society, and editor of The Year in Cognitive Neuroscience, an annual review published by the New York Academy of Sciences.
During his time at UC Santa Barbara, Professor Miller has demonstrated a strong commitment to undergraduate education. He has worked in numerous ways to help our campus support students and ensure their academic and personal success. As chair and vice chair of our Psychological and Brain Sciences department, he cared deeply about transforming the undergraduate curriculum of the department, chairing the curriculum committee that instituted a new Bachelor of Science degree within the department. He also served as a faculty mentor for the Transfer Student Summer Program starting in 2015, a program designed to mentor and support transfer students in their transition to UC Santa Barbara.
As Interim Dean and AVC, Professor Miller has taken on difficult challenges, playing an important role in our COVID-19 response team, protecting the interests of our undergraduates, and working with our deans on curricular planning to ensure that students can complete their degree objectives.
We appreciate his commitment to undergraduate education and his longstanding dedication to our academic community. Please join us in extending our warmest congratulations to Michael in this important leadership role.
Sincerely,
Henry T. Yang
Chancellor
Search Advisory Committee for Dean and Associate Vice Chancellor of Undergraduate Education
Omer Blaes, Chair; Professor, Physics
Glenn Beltz, Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies, College of Engineering; Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Daniel Conroy-Beam, Associate Professor, Psychological & Brain Sciences
Leroy Laverman, Lecturer with Security of Employment, College of Creative Studies and Chemistry & Biochemistry; Associate Dean, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, College of Creative Studies
Mina Matta, Associated Students Representative
Danielle Mendoza, Staff representative; Student Affairs Manager, Humanities Administrative Support Center (HASC)
Andy Merolla, Associate Professor, Communication
Jeff Moehlis, Chair and Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Sameer Pandya, Associate Professor, Asian American Studies
Lisa Przekop, Director of Admissions
Erika Rappaport, Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies, History
Laura Romo, Professor, Education
Brandon Whited, Associate Professor, Theater and Dance
Ex Officio
Ricardo Alcaíno, Director, Equal Opportunity and Discrimination Prevention