Tufts Names New Arts and Sciences Dean

Joanne Berger-Sweeney, Wellesley College neuroscientist, to lead Tufts’ largest school

Neuroscientist Joanne Berger-Sweeney has been named dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, the largest school at Tufts, effective August 23. Berger-Sweeney was the associate dean of Wellesley College, where she was also the Allene Lummis Russell Professor in Neuroscience. She has been on the faculty at Wellesley since 1991 and was named associate dean in 2004.

In addition to her scholarship, she is widely recognized for her efforts to increase diversity in the biological sciences.

Her honors include being recognized in 2010 as one of the five most influential African-American biomedical scientists in America by the HistoryMakers, a national nonprofit research and educational organization; being named a Fellow by the Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience; and receiving a Lifetime Mentoring Achievement Award from the Society for Neuroscience in 2006 and a National Science Foundation Young Investigator award.

“Joanne Berger-Sweeney is an esteemed researcher, a passionate teacher and mentor and a talented administrator whose leadership is characterized by collaboration, creativity and inclusiveness—attributes that are also central to the values of Tufts University and the School of Arts and Sciences,” said Jamshed Bharucha, senior vice president and provost. “She will be an outstanding addition to an exceptional team.”

As associate dean of Wellesley College, Berger-Sweeney oversaw 20 academic departments and programs. From 2004 to 2006, she also served as director of the college’s Neurosciences Program and helped spearhead the creation of that cross-disciplinary major. She sought to improve faculty recruitment, retention and professional development, and was responsible for strategic planning initiatives relating to faculty diversity, interdisciplinary programs and non-tenure track faculty. Berger-Sweeney also demonstrated a strong commitment to other issues that are priorities for Tufts, including need-blind admissions and increased financial aid.

Her passion for teaching is reflected in the impressive accomplishments of the undergraduates, graduate students and fellows she has guided. She has been active in the Minority Mentoring Program at Wellesley for more than a decade. From 1995 to 2006, she directed the Society for Neuroscience’s Minority Neuroscience Fellowship Program, a federally funded training grant to provide pre-doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships to underrepresented minorities engaging in neuroscience research.
Learning, Memory and Disease

Berger-Sweeney’s research focuses on the neurobiology of learning and memory. She has helped to advance our understanding of normal memory and cognitive processes and how these processes malfunction in neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders, such as Rett syndrome and Alzheimer’s disease.

A 1979 graduate of Wellesley, Berger-Sweeney received an M.P.H. in environmental health sciences from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1981, and a Ph.D. in neurotoxicology from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in 1989. Following her graduate training, she worked for two years at the Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale (INSERM), a multidisciplinary public health research institution in France.

She is a member of the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives, and has served on numerous national and professional boards and committees. She has been a member of the behavioral neuroscience review panel of the National Science Foundation, a member of a National Institutes of Health study section panel and a member of the editorial board of Behavioral Neuroscience.

– Information from Tufts University