The Office of the Provost has announced that Katherine Reeves has been named senior vice provost for graduate education and dean of the Graduate School, and that R. Karl Rethemeyer has been re-appointed as dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences an additional five years.

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Reeves will assume her office starting August 15, while Rethemeyer’s re-appointment was effective starting July 1. The announcements were made in a pair of email messages to faculty sent this month by Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Fouad Abd-El-Khalick.

Reeves is currently associate dean of graduate and professional studies and professor of epidemiology in the School of Public Health and Health Sciences. A member of the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology since 2008, she has served as a Faculty Ambassador in Teaching for Inclusiveness, Diversity, and Equity and contributed to the development of the For the Common Good strategic plan as a member of the EDUCATE working group where she advocated for graduate students. Her research in cancer epidemiology, women’s health, and aging addresses the impact of environmental chemicals on human health and is regularly supported by grants from the National Institute of Health, the National Institute on Aging, and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

In her new role, Reeves will serve as the senior academic official responsible for the advancement and administration of graduate education at UMass Amherst. She will work to ensure an exceptional graduate student experience and enhance graduate student recruitment, support, and professional development opportunities as the campus drives the continuous improvement of more than 90 graduate programs.

Reeves succeeds Elizabeth Jakob, professor of biology, who has served as interim senior vice provost and dean of the Graduate School since the spring.

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Rethemeyer, a professor of public policy, became dean of SBS in July 2021. As dean, he has grown enrollment and opportunities for high impact practices for undergraduate and graduate students in the college, uniting classroom learning and job-relevant experience. He has also been instrumental in securing significant philanthropic support, surpassing the college’s Accelerate campaign goal. Additionally, he has fostered field-leading research and community engagement in SBS.

Prior to arriving in Amherst, Rethemeyer was a member of the faculty of the University at Albany. At Albany, he directed graduate programs in public policy and public administration, subsequently chaired the Department of Public Administration and Policy, and was successively associate dean, interim dean and dean of the Rockefeller College.