Dear Tulane Community,
Kimberly Foster, a gifted and award-winning researcher, teacher, mentor and dean who has led the School of Science and Engineering through five transformative years, has announced her intent to step down on June 30, 2024.
A passionate champion of interdisciplinary science and engineering scholarship, Kimberly was instrumental in vastly expanding SSE’s infrastructure and research funding. The school’s research funding grew from $20.2 million in 2018, her first year as dean, to over $30 million in 2022 and the School of Science and Engineering now has two additional endowed chairs devoted to seeking solutions to the pressing challenges of our times: the Charlotte Beyer Hubbell Chair in River-Coastal Science and Engineering and the David and Jane Flowerree Professorship in River-Coastal Science and Engineering.
Perhaps most impressive is the enthusiasm for science and engineering that Kimberly has inspired among students. SSE majors have steadily risen throughout her deanship. In fact, Tulane’s incoming class reflects a 70 percent increase in students intending to select an engineering major.
To match this growing interest, the school has hired under her leadership 50 new faculty members and increased curriculum offerings, including reintroducing a minor in civil engineering-water resources at Tulane for the first time since Civil Engineering was discontinued in 2005. Additionally, she facilitated creation of a co-curricular Gulf Scholars Program funded by the National Academies of Sciences and established certificates in computer science, river-coastal science and engineering and global information systems. During her time as dean, the school expanded its online offerings to include MS degrees in Computer Science and River & Coastal Science & Engineering.
She oversaw the creation of new endowed centers and funds, including the Donata Henry Research Fund in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, the Jurist Center of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence, the River-Coastal Science and Engineering Excellence Fund and the Hubbell Symposium fund in River-Coastal Science and Engineering.
One of Kimberly’s most significant achievements will be the completion of Steven and Jann Paul Hall in 2024. This new home for SSE will serve as an interdisciplinary hub that will include classrooms, labs and common spaces that encourage the integration of the life sciences and physical sciences with engineering and provide the synergy for discoveries, treatments and cures.
Kimberly will take a one-semester sabbatical to pursue various academic projects after she steps down next summer. While she continues leading SSE through the next academic year, we will begin a national search for a new dean.
Please join us in thanking Kimberly for her deep dedication to the university and its students, for her desire to train the next generation of leaders in science and engineering and for her achievements in making the School of Science and Engineering one of the country’s premier destinations for learning and innovation.
Sincerely,
Michael A. Fitts, President
Robin Forman, Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost