The Graduate School will welcome Beth Meyerand, Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor in the Departments of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, to the role of associate dean later this month.
Associate deans collaborate with the Dean of the Graduate School to provide institutional leadership for graduate education across campus. Meyerand’s focus areas as associate dean will be academic affairs, including admissions and academic planning, and enhancing faculty mentoring of graduate students along with graduate student mentor and mentee training.
She will also serve on the Graduate School’s leadership team and on the Graduate Faculty Executive Committee. She will begin in the associate dean role on June 28.
Meyerand earned her PhD in biophysics in 1996 from Medical College of Wisconsin. She then spent a year as a research associate and another as a research assistant professor at Dartmouth Medical School. In 1998, Meyerand joined UW–Madison as an assistant professor in the Department of Medical Physics with affiliate appointments in Radiology and Biomedical Engineering. She served as Chair of the Biomedical Engineering department from 2010 to 2016.
Her research in medical imaging explores new technologies and methods to visualize the brain’s structure and function to improve clinical diagnosis and care. Her lab applies functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) methods to locate and understand connectivity in different regions of the brain, with the aim of understanding the underlying causes of epilepsy, traumatic brain injury, brain tumors, and other diseases.
Meyerand brings a successful record of leadership in graduate education at UW–Madison to the associate dean role, including as director of graduate studies in the Departments of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering and as principal investigator and director of T32 training programs. Since 2019, Meyerand has been the faculty director of the Science and Medicine Graduate Research Scholars community, which supports underrepresented graduate students across 38 departments in five schools and colleges. She has previously served on the Graduate Faculty Executive Committee and the faculty committee for the Graduate Engineering Research Scholars community.
Since 2014, Meyerand has been a master trainer for the National Research Mentoring Network, providing training in effective research mentoring strategies and how to establish mentoring programs. She has also served as a facilitator for the Delta Program in the Graduate School’s research mentor learning communities.
Meyerand most recently held the position of Vice Provost for Faculty and Staff Affairs on campus. Her work as Vice Provost includes collaborating with campus leaders and shared governance representatives to clarify existing policies, introduce new initiatives, address faculty and staff concerns, and advise on campus-wide issues as part of the leadership team in the Office of the Provost.