Dear Student,
I am delighted to announce that Ayanna Kim Thomas, Professor of Psychology and Dean of Research for the School of Arts and Sciences, has been appointed Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS), effective immediately. Dean Thomas will maintain the Dean of Research role while I conduct an internal search for this position.
Given Dean Thomas’s deep commitment to graduate education, her expertise in research, her almost two decades of mentoring PhD students in the Department of Psychology, and her commitment to equity and inclusion, she is the ideal candidate for this important position. I know she to be a forward-thinking leader, and I look forward to seeing her lead the graduate school to its next chapter.
For more than three years, Dean Thomas has served as Dean of Research, where she has broadened our school’s research profile, supervised the school’s Research Administration team, and expanded research and training opportunities for our faculty. During her tenure, some of her accomplishments include increasing research expenditures and external funding; developing and launching the Strategic Training for the Advancement of Research and Scholarship (STARS) program that offers workshops and seminars on grant writing, proposal development, and interdisciplinary collaboration; and enhancing A&S’s research infrastructure and administrative efficiency. In addition, she has been instrumental in promoting interdisciplinary and collaborative research, identifying areas of strength and potential growth in AS&E, and launched the A&S cluster hiring program.
In her role as Professor of Psychology, Dean Thomas investigates the subjective experience that accompanies memories. Her research encompasses metacognition, memory distortion, eyewitness memory, and applying cognition to education. Her more recent work has demonstrated that memory errors can be exacerbated when people are not able to exercise metacognitive control at retrieval. She is also leading an effort to advance innovation across disciplines as a co-primary investigator for a National Science Foundation Growing Convergence Research award-supported project where an interdisciplinary team across Tufts aims to help STEM students to reframe and engage with ambiguity, uncertainty, and confusion.
Dean Thomas came to Tufts’ Department of Psychology in 2007 as an Assistant Professor, where she established the meta-Cognition and Applied Memory Lab. She was promoted to the role of Associate Professor in 2013 and Professor in 2019. She has served as Director of Graduate Studies for her department, helping to maintain the strong reputation of its graduate program. In addition, she has been an advocate and supporter of the Visiting and Early Research Scholars’ Experiences (VERSE) Program, and is a co-founder of the Spark Society, an organization with the mission to give scientists of color the tools to become innovators in the cognitive sciences.
She received her PhD in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Washington, and then spent three years as an NIA postdoctoral fellow at Washington University in St. Louis, MO. She also holds a BA in Psychology and African American Studies from Wesleyan University.
Read more about Dean Thomas’s appointment as GSAS Dean on Tufts Now.
Please join me in congratulating Dean Thomas in her new role.
I would also like to thank the A&S Advisory Committee, who provided helpful input on the nominations I received for this important position, as well as the interview participants for their time and thoughtful feedback on the candidates.
Sincerely,
Bárbara M. Brizuela
Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences
Professor of Education
