Priscilla M. Clarkson Named Permanent Dean of Commonwealth College at UMass Amherst

June 26, 2007

Contact:

Patrick J. Callahan 413/545-0444

AMHERST, Mass. – The University of Massachusetts Amherst has named Priscilla M. Clarkson to be the new dean of Commonwealth College, the honors college on the campus. Charlena M. Seymour, provost and senior vice chancellor for academic affairs, made the announcement.

Clarkson has served as interim dean at Commonwealth College since 2006. She was also named Distinguished Professor in March 2007 and was associate dean in the School of Public Health and Health Sciences from 1994-2006 with responsibility for research for the School of Nursing from 2005-06. From 2003-06, Clarkson served as director of the Baystate-UMass Collaborative Biomedical Research Program. She has been a member of the faculty since 1977.

Seymour says Clarkson is ideally suited to lead Commonwealth College. “Priscilla Clarkson has a long and distinguished history of academic achievement, research and collaboration on the Amherst campus and will bring her experience and skills to this very important academic and administrative post,” Seymour says. “She also has earned three degrees from UMass Amherst and has used them to develop an internationally recognized career as a scientist.”

Clarkson says she is pleased to accept the appointment and the challenges it presents. “I look forward to working with Commonwealth College’s first-rate staff and faculty to create a new vision that will attract academically talented students from all backgrounds. It is an exciting opportunity to help these highly motivated students develop the scholarship, creativity, citizenship and leadership skills necessary to address the complex problems of society.”

A fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), Clarkson has served as its national president and vice president, a member of its board of trustees and as president of the ACSM Foundation.

Clarkson has supported her research with $4 million in external funding, including grants from the NIH, Christopher Reeve Foundation, Medinova, Inc., Quaker Oats Company, Proctor and Gamble, and Whitehall Laboratories.

The major focus of her research is on the responses of human skeletal muscles to environmental challenges such as overexertion exercise that results in muscle damage or disuse that leads to atrophy. She has also studied aspects of sports nutrition. Clarkson has published more than 160 scientific articles and has given numerous national and international research presentations. She is editor-in-chief of Exercise and Sports Science Reviews, currently sits on the editorial and advisory boards of several other journals, and was editor of the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism for eight years.

Clarkson is also interested in ballet and has co-written and co-edited books on dance medicine.

She has served as a scientific advisor to the International Life Sciences Institute and was a member of a science working group at NASA, which developed labs for the International Space Station. She was also an advisor to the National Space Biomedical Research Institute and served on a panel appointed by the governor to recommend changes in police training to prevent cases of rhabdomyolysis leading to kidney failure. Clarkson also served on the NCAA Competitive and Medical Safeguards Committee, the National Commission on Sports and Substance Abuse, and on the panel of the Committee on Military Nutrition at the Institute of Medicine. Clarkson is currently a member of the Gatorade Sports Science Institute’s research review board.

In 2005, she received the National ACSM Honor Award and was one of 12 Amherst campus faculty recognized with the new Award for Outstanding Accomplishments in Research and Creative Activity. Her other honors include a Chancellor’s Medal as a Distinguished Faculty Lecturer, the ACSM Citation Award, the New England ACSM Honor Award and an Excellence in Education Award from the Gatorade Sports Science Institute.

At UMass Amherst, Clarkson earned her bachelor’s degree in zoology in 1969, her master’s degree in zoology/marine science in 1973 and her doctorate in exercise science/human movement in 1977.

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