Deborah K. Fitzgerald, associate dean of the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, has been named the interim dean for the school while a special committee conducts the search for a permanent replacement for Kenan Sahin Dean Philip��S. Khoury.
Provost L. Rafael Reif has announced that Fitzgerald will take office July 1, when Khoury, who headed the school for 15 years, becomes associate provost.
A leading historian of American agriculture, Fitzgerald has taught at MIT since 1988 and is a professor of the history of technology in the Program in Science, Technology and Society. From 1996 to 2001, she chaired the Ph.D. program in history, anthropology, and Science, Technology and Society, which is administered by the Program in Science, Technology and Society jointly with the history faculty and the anthropology program.
Fitzgerald has also chaired the Gender Equity Committee in the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (SHASS) and has been involved in a variety of Institute-wide committees, including those on academic performance, discipline and graduate school policy. She has served as the associate dean of SHASS since April��1, 2005.
The search committee for a new dean, chaired by Professor Pauline��R. Maier, has begun its work, and the provost expects to identify a successor to Khoury in the coming months, according to an e-mail sent to the community today by Vice President and Secretary of the Corporation Kathryn A. Willmore.
