Welcoming You Back during the Limited Return to Campus and Updates from the Dean’s Office
I hope you all saw the message I sent earlier this week welcoming everyone back to this unprecedented semester. I can’t thank everyone enough for all the hard work that was put in over the summer to make this week and the upcoming semester possible. As we continue to work together to support our students and provide a world class education I know that CLAS will lead the way and continue to thrive.
In the midst of the many changes that we are all working through to prepare for the fall semester, we will also have a few changes coming to the CLAS Dean’s Office. While many are working remotely, the Office of the Dean has a new website with information on how to contact office personnel. The site also points visitors to our new designated email address, clasdeansoffice@ucdenver.edu. You can set up a live chat via Zoom (Monday through Friday, 8 AM to 5 PM) by sending a request to this email address.
Please join us in welcoming Stephanie Santorico, Professor in the Department of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences who will be serving as Interim Associate Dean for Research and Creative Activities beginning August 1, 2020. We are very lucky to have Stephanie join the CLAS Dean’s Office bringing a wealth of experience serving as Director of Graduate Studies and Statistical Programs for her department and has joint appointments in the Department of Biostatistics & Informatics, the Human Medical Genetics and Genomics Program, and the Division of Biomedical Informatics and Personalized Medicine at the Anschutz Medical Campus. Dr. Santorico’s research, which has been funded through multiple NIH awards, is highly interdisciplinary, bridging the areas of statistics and genetics. Her work includes methods and techniques for detecting genetic variation that associates with human disease, and more recently, translational research working towards disease subtypes that could inform medical treatment. You may have become familiar with her work from her public presentation as the inaugural selection to give the Chancellor’s Distinguished Faculty lecture. She is heavily involved in understanding the genetic factors that contribute to vitiligo, an autoimmune disease that causes progressive skin bleaching. She was a central contributor to the NIH-funded FaceBase program, which is working to understand the genetic factors that cause variation in facial features for children with a breadth of genetic disorders. Furthermore, her work with the Denver Police Department’s world-class crime lab, and her collaborations with the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and other public-facing science initiatives wholly embody CU’s engagement with the broader community. Stephanie will assume responsibilities for grants and contracts submission and management with the Research and Creative Activities team. She will also work with the Graduate Programs and departments undergoing degree reviews during the 2020-2021 academic year and the many other activities that are part of the Associate Dean for Research and Creative Activities role. She is excited to bring this network to the CLAS Dean’s office and to continue to build opportunities both internal to CU Denver and across the broader Denver area to support research and we are excited to have her as part of the team.
Laura Argys, former Associate Dean for Research and Creative Activities was approved for a one-year sabbatical, to work on research as a follow-up to her recent Oxford University Handbook on Women and the Economy. With the complications researchers and creative scholars have experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic and the campus restrictions, Laura has been an integral part of the planning, facilitation and oversight of restarting research and creative activities in CLAS. With all of the added responsibilities on the research front in dealing with the restrictions to campus access and the necessity of working with many individual research sponsors, (as well as the added complications she is facing working with her co-authors across the country), Laura will be staying on in the Dean’s Office through the fall semester as the CLAS Associate Dean for Research Safety and Compliance for the fall 2020 semester. In addition to working with researchers as they are restarting their work on campus and navigating additional modifications with sponsors, Laura will continue her work with the Safe Return team, Health Professions Advising, the International College Beijing, and as representative on the CU Budget committee and Salary Equity project. Laura will begin her sabbatical in January.
I hope all of you, returning to campus or not, feel ready and supported as we start this new semester together. Remember to keep washing your hands, wearing your masks, and taking care of yourself and each other.