Deans
Andrea Amalfitano
Andrea Amalfitano, DO, PhD, is dean of the College of Osteopathic Medicine. Amalfitano is a highly regarded researcher in developing cutting-edge therapeutics, including gene transfer technologies, and has done work that has led to innovative treatments for infants, children and adults with musculoskeletal diseases. He is a clinician, caring for infants, children and adults potentially affected by a variety of genetic conditions. He also holds an endowed university chair position, is a professor of pediatrics, microbiology and molecular genetics and is director of MSU’s Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute. Amalfitano earned a bachelor of science in microbiology in 1984 and a PhD in microbiology in 1989, both from Michigan State University. He earned his doctor of osteopathic medicine degree in 1990 from the MSU College of Osteopathic Medicine’s DO/PhD dual-degree program.
College of Communication Arts and Sciences
404 Wilson Road, Room 287
Communication Arts and Sciences Building
(517) 355-3410
pdavid@msu.edu
Prabu David
Prabu David is dean of the College of Communication Arts and Sciences. Prior to his appointment, David was a professor of communication and associate dean for academics at the Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University. Previously he was on the faculty at Ohio State University, where he held a number of posts, including assistant and associate professor, director of undergraduate studies at the university’s School of Communication and faculty associate with OSU’s Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Center for Public Health Preparedness. His research emphasis is communication technology and health, and his current research focuses on mobile media. He has served as an investigator or co-investigator on projects funded by the National Cancer Institute, the Centers for Disease Control, U.S. Department of State, the Lance Armstrong Foundation and the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.
College of Natural Science
288 Farm Lane, Room 104
Natural Science Building
(517) 355-4473
natsci.dean@msu.edu
Phillip Duxbury
Phillip M. Duxbury is dean of the College of Natural Science. Prior to his appointment as dean, Duxbury served as chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy. He joined the MSU faculty in 1986 as an assistant professor, was promoted to associate professor in 1994 and became a full professor in 1998. During his MSU tenure, Duxbury also has served as physics and astronomy graduate studies director, associate director of the MSU Center for Fundamental Materials Research, director of the Center for Nanomaterials Design and Assembly and director of the Center of Research Excellence in Complex Materials. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society. Duxbury’s specialties include statistical physics, solar device models, ultrafast processes and accelerator physics. His research is funded by grants from the National Science Foundation. He is also co-PI of a workforce development project in accelerator science and technology funded by the Department of Energy.
Residential College in Arts and Humanities
362 Bogue Street, Room 524
Snyder Hall
(517) 355-0210
esquith@msu.edu
Stephen Esquith
Stephen Esquith was appointed dean of the Residential College in Arts and Humanities in fall 2006. Prior to this appointment, he served as chair of the Department of Philosophy from 2000 to 2005. Esquith has been researching ethical problems in developing countries since 1990, when he was a senior Fulbright scholar in Poland. He has also been involved in numerous civic engagement projects in the public schools, including an exchange program between local elementary school children in the United States and schoolchildren in a community school in Kati, Mali. He led a study abroad program focusing on ethical issues in development in Mali in the summers of 2004 and 2006, and he spent the academic year 2005-06 teaching and working with colleagues at the University of Bamako as a senior Fulbright scholar.
Robert Floden
Robert Floden is dean of the College of Education. Floden, who previously served as interim dean of the college, is co-director of the Education Policy Center at MSU. The University Distinguished Professor has been on the College of Education faculty since 1977 and became associate dean in 1989. A member of the National Academy of Education, he is one of the preeminent scholars in the areas of teaching, teacher education and how policy is linked to classroom practice. He has appointments across multiple study areas in the college, including teacher education, educational psychology, educational policy, mathematics education and measurement and quantitative methods.
Jim Forger
In addition to serving as dean of the College of Music, James Forger is a professor of saxophone, an active performing saxophonist and an award-winning recording artist. He was appointed director of the School of Music in 1990, and since then the school (now college) has been recognized as a nationally ranked program. Forger is member of the Commission on Accreditation of the National Association of Schools of Music and has served as an evaluator and consultant to music schools and nondegree-granting community music programs across the country. In 1994, he founded a new nondegree-granting division of the College of Music, the Community Music School, which enrolls 1,200 individuals each year. Forger has performed throughout South America, Europe, Asia and the former Soviet Union. He has been the guest saxophonist in residence at the International Chamber Music Festival of the Mayan Highlands in San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico. He has appeared as soloist with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Warsaw Philharmonic, the Greater Lansing Symphony Orchestra, the Grand Rapids Symphony and the Sinfonica de Vientos in Tunja, Colombia.
Eli Broad College of Business
632 Bogue Street, Room 302C
Business Complex
(517) 355-8379
gupta@broad.msu.edu
Sanjay Gupta
Sanjay Gupta is the Eli and Edythe L. Broad Dean of the Eli Broad College of Business. Gupta joined the Broad College in 2007 as the Russell E. Palmer Endowed Professor in Accounting and chairperson of the Department of Accounting and Information Systems. He was appointed associate dean for MBA and professional master’s programs in July 2012. Previously, he held several faculty positions at Arizona State University, including the first Henry and Horne Professorship in Accountancy. An expert on corporate and individual tax policy, Gupta has consulted for Fortune 500 companies, the U.S. government, major public accounting firms and international consulting firms. Gupta serves as a commissioner for the Pathways Commission, studying the future path of accounting higher education, and on the advisory boards for the Axia Institute, MSU-CIBER and the Demmer Center for Business Transformation.
College of Agriculture and Natural Resources
446 West Circle Drive, Room 102
Morrill Hall of Agriculture
(517) 355-0232
hendric6@msu.edu
Ronald L. Hendrick
Ronald Hendrick is dean of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Hendrick, an MSU alumnus, previously served as interim vice president for agricultural administration and interim dean for the College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Science at Ohio State University. At OSU, he also held the positions of senior associate dean and director of the School of Environment and Natural Resources. Prior to that, he was associate dean for academic affairs in the D.B. Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources at the University of Georgia. He earned his bachelor and doctoral degrees from MSU in forestry and forest ecology, in 1986 and 1992, respectively.
Michele H. Jackson
Michele Jackson is dean of Lyman Briggs College. Prior to her appointment, Jackson served as the inaugural associate provost for University eLearning Initiatives at the College of William and Mary, where she led the campus in creating new approaches to online and other technology-enhanced learning. She served previously as founder and director of the Arts and Science Support of Education through Technology at the University of Colorado-Boulder and as chair of the Department of Communication. Jackson also served as editor of the Journal of Applied Communication Research. Her research and teaching address issues of the design and uses of computer-based communication technologies in organizational and educational contexts.
College of Engineering
428 S. Shaw Lane, Room 3410
Engineering Building
(517) 355-5133
kempel@egr.msu.edu
Leo Kempel
Leo Kempel, dean of the College of Engineering, has been on the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering faculty since 1998 and served as associate dean for research from 2008 to March 2013. He previously served as the inaugural director of the MSU High Performance Computing Center (2004–06) and associate dean for special initiatives (2006–08). His research is in the general area of applied electromagnetics with particular emphasis on conformal antennas, engineered materials and measurement of electromagnetic properties of materials. He received the National Science Foundation CAREER award and is a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers and the Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society. Kempel received a bachelor of science degree from the University of Cincinnati in 1989 and a doctorate from the University of Michigan in 1994.
Christopher P. Long
Christopher Long is dean of the College of Arts and Letters. Long was previously associate dean for graduate and undergraduate education and professor of philosophy and classics in the College of the Liberal Arts at Pennsylvania State University. Long joined the philosophy faculty at Penn State in 2004 and served as director of graduate studies in philosophy from 2005 to 2010. He was appointed associate dean for undergraduate education in 2010 and added graduate education to his portfolio in 2013. Long’s extensive publications in ancient Greek and contemporary continental philosophy include three books: The Ethics of Ontology: Rethinking an Aristotelian Legacy, Aristotle on the Nature of Truth and an enhanced digital book, Socratic and Platonic Political Philosophy: Practicing a Politics of Reading. He is also cofounder of the Public Philosophy Journal, a project to create an innovative online space for digital scholarship and communication.
College of Veterinary Medicine
784 Wilson Road, Room G100
Veterinary Medical Center
(517) 355-6509
puschner@msu.edu
Birgit Puschner
Birgit Puschner is dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine. Prior to coming to MSU, Puschner was professor and chair of the Department of Molecular Biosciences in the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of California, Davis. She previously served as professor of clinical veterinary toxicology and professor of toxicology at the school. She also worked as a diagnostic veterinary toxicologist for more than a decade for the California Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory System, with the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. She received a doctor of veterinary medicine, licensure to practice and her doctorate in physiology from Tiermedizinische Fakultät, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany. Her research draws on and contributes to multiple disciplines that influence animal, human and environmental health. Her research has been funded by organizations that include the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Randolph Rasch
Randolph Rasch is dean of the College of Nursing. Previously a professor and department chair in the School of Nursing at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Rasch also had served as interim chair and visiting professor in the Department of Nursing at North Carolina Central University in Durham. In addition, he has held various professor and director positions at Vanderbilt University’s School of Nursing. His research expertise is in the areas of primary care and community health, specifically analyzing the roles, functions and appropriate skill mix for all levels of the profession. Outside of academia, Rasch has worked as a family nurse practitioner for more than 10 years and as the first statewide director of nursing services for the Tennessee Department of Correction in Nashville. He is a fellow in the American Association of Nurse Practitioners and a distinguished scholar in the National Academies of Practice.
College of Human Medicine
Secchia Center
15 Michigan St. NE
Grand Rapids, MI
(616) 233-1678
sousaa@msu.edu
Aron Sousa
Aron Sousa, MD, FACP, is the interim dean of the College of Human Medicine. He previously served as interim dean in 2015 and 2016. In his previous role, Sousa served as senior associate dean for academic affairs at the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine, a post he's held since 2006. He was responsible for the educational programs of the college across the seven community campuses across the state. During that time he managed the doubling of the college’s class size and converting its two-year, 60 student Grand Rapids campus into a four-year, 350 student campus. He also led the creation of a pair of new, two-year clinical campuses in Traverse City and Midland. Sousa is a practicing general internist. He received his bachelor’s in chemistry and his medical degree from Indiana University School of Medicine. He then served as both a resident and chief resident in internal medicine and completed a Primary Care Fellowship at Michigan State University.