I am pleased to announce that Jane Lipson, Albert W. Smith Professor of Chemistry, has agreed to serve as Associate Dean of the Sciences beginning July 1, 2021. Jane, who received her degrees in Chemistry from the University of Toronto, has been at Dartmouth since 1987, following a NATO Fellowship and a brief appointment on the faculty of the University of Guelph. As you well know, Jane has been essential to our operations and planning during this pandemic year, serving our faculty as Chair of the COP and our broader community as a member of the Provost's Council on Priorities. Jane's contributions and service to the international scientific community and to our Dartmouth community have been both extensive and exceptional, and she brings a wealth of knowledge and leadership expertise to her role as Associate Dean.
Jane's scholarly research concerns polymer physics. While a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard's Institute for Advanced Studies (2017–2018), she described her scholarly activities as "focus[ing] on creating bright lines between the molecular-level structure of polymers (i.e., large synthetic molecules that make up plastics or composites) and their physical behavior. Her work involves using both theory and simulation and, in all cases, is tightly tethered to experimental data on real systems. Research in the Lipson group has targeted polymer mixtures, thin films, and glassy materials, all of which have significant applications in the everyday world." In addition to being Dartmouth's Albert W. Smith Professor of Chemistry, she has received numerous awards and recognition for her work, including from the American Chemical Society, the American Physical Society, as well as Fellowships from the Royal Academy of Engineering, Imperial College (London), and Harvard University. The author of over 100 studies, she has given over 70 presentations on her research in conferences throughout the world in the past fifteen years alone.
Jane's service to the global scientific community is likewise impressive. In addition to serving as reviewer for Macromolecules, Polymer, The Journal of Chemical Physics, The Physical Review Letters, and the Journal of Polymer Science, Jane has also served as a funding panel member for NSF and reviewer for other funding agencies including the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund. In 2016, she served as Organizer and Discussion Leader for the Education, Diversity, and Outreach portion of the NSF Workshop, "Frontiers in Polymer Science and Engineering," contributing to the final report. For ten years (2008–2017), she was Associate Editor of Macromolecules (American Chemical Society), where she handled approximately three hundred manuscripts per year, and she has contributed in numerous ways to the American Physical Society, including serving in 2011 as the elected Chair of the Polymer Physics Division.
While Jane's is clearly an impressive career of scholarship and international professional service, this does not yet account for her many contributions closer to home. Jane has served on the Committee on the Faculty from 1991 to 1997 and again from 2003 to 2006, having chaired three times. She has served on the Council on Benefits (1995–1997), the Council on Sponsored Activities (1996–1997, 2003–2005), the Council on Honorary Degrees (1999–2002), and the Council on Academic Freedom and Responsibility (2019–2022). She has been on the Montgomery Endowment Committee (2005–2008), the Presidential Search Committee (2008–2009), the Conflict of Interest Committee (2014–2017), and the Committee on Priorities (2014–2018, with one year as Chair). Jane has served on the Faculty Coordinating Committee three times (2005–2006, 2016–2017, and 2020–2021), and has served on the Committee on Organization and Policy from 1999 to 2002 and from 2018 to 2021, acting as Chair for one year each term. As noted, this year she been serving on the Provost's Council on Priorities, the FCC, the Council on Academic Freedom and Responsibility, and chairing the COP.
As Associate Dean of the Sciences, Jane brings her leadership expertise to oversee six academic Departments (Biological Sciences, Chemistry, Computer Science, Earth Sciences, Mathematics, and Physics & Astronomy) in addition to the Neukom Institute for Computational Science and the research and fellowship operations of Undergraduate Advising and Research (UGAR).
Please join me in welcoming Jane to the leadership team in Wentworth. We may all look forward to Jane's exceptional insight and administrative acumen, which she has well proven throughout her career thus far and especially in this past year.
I would also take this opportunity to thank Dan Rockmore, William H. Neukom 1964 Distinguished Professor of Computational Science and Professor of Mathematics, for his dedicated service to our faculty and broader community as Associate Dean for the Sciences these past four years. Under his leadership, the Wright Center for the Study of Computation and Just Communities was established. His breadth of knowledge has been invaluable for the successful recruitment and support for our colleagues in the Sciences as well as for the entire Dean of the Faculty team.