By Talie Meza
Correspondent
Following an eight month search, Dr. Sunita Gupta Kramer has been named the new dean of the School of Science, according to an announcement released on Tuesday.
Effective July 1, Kramer will act as a faculty member on campus following the newly announced appointment.
The College welcomes Kramer from Rutgers University, where she served twelve years as an academic faculty member before taking on leadership roles in the university community.
She currently serves as the university's inaugural Associate Vice President for Research and Experiential Education. She works to coordinate and develop avenues for student research, innovation, experiential learning and external partnerships.
The appointment comes following an extensive nationwide search completed by 10 faculty, staff and student members of the search committee, which was led by Suzanne McCotter, dean of the School of Education.
Kramer established and currently directs Rutgers' Innovation, Design, and Entrepreneurship Academy, (IDEA), a four-year program that integrates research, design, and entrepreneurship into undergraduate studies.
She also functions as a core faculty member of the Rutgers Global Health Institute where she worked to develop a new dual BA/MD program in global health and helped create clinical experiences for students dedicated to improving healthcare for incarcerated and recently released individuals.
In addition, Kramer served for six years as a standing member of an integral committee at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The National Institute of General Medical Sciences’ Committee on Training, Workforce Development, and Diversity works to design alternative strategies to increase undergraduate and graduate sponsored research, especially in support of developing a diverse STEM workforce.
She served as the campus lead for Rutgers’ multi-disciplinary Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation program, which provides research opportunities for students with the goal of increasing the number of baccalaureate and graduate degrees awarded to populations that are underrepresented in the STEM field.
At Rutgers-New Brunswick, she served as associate vice provost and founding associate academic dean of the Honors College, an interdisciplinary living-learning community focused on addressing 21st century challenges through team-based projects and collaborations.
Alongside her leadership at the Honors College, Kramer has developed and run design thinking workshops and recently contributed to teaching a course on Music and the Brain.
Kramer earned her BA in biology from Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania, her PhD in molecular and cellular biology from Stony Brook University, and completed a postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of California where she studied cell guidance mechanisms during early embryonic development.
Before her roles in leadership at the university, Kramer served on the faculty at Rutgers-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, where she taught and mentored undergraduate, graduate and medical students. She led research programs funded by grants from the NIH, NSF and the American Heart Association.
“We are delighted to bring such a distinguished administrator-teacher-scholar to this important deanship,” said Jeffrey Osborn, the College’s provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs in the email. “Dr. Kramer is passionate about science education and a college culture where learners and educators can thrive as student-scholars and teacher-scholars.”
