New Associate Dean for Administration Joins SPH.

Susan Hartman Foster has joined the School of Public Health as its new Associate Dean for Administration.

Foster comes to SPH from Harvard University, where she was the executive director of the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology—one of the largest departments in the Faculty of Arts & Sciences.

Foster’s commitment to public health began early in her career. She spent 15 years at the Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition, where, as a member of the founding administration, she played an instrumental role in the development of the school’s graduate programs. She later joined the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, first as the administrative director of the Department of Epidemiology, then the Department of Maternal and Child Health.

At Harvard, she went on to serve as the founding executive director of the Institute for Quantitative Social Science (IQSS), as well as the administrative lead of the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, the Harvard Film Archive, and the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies. In 2012 she received the Harvard Hero Award for her service to the university, owing in particular to her contributions and ability to create a diverse workplace.

“While my entire career has been focused in higher education, the largest portion my work has been in the public health field,” says Foster. “Returning to public health could not have been a more natural choice.

“I firmly believe that the greatest challenges to people across the world in the coming century are in the fields of public health,” she adds. “My goal here is to help create an atmosphere and infrastructure that encourages and supports our faculty and students, so that they can do their very best work and make a real difference to the health and well-being of people in the world.”

Foster was selected by a search advisory committee led by Associate Dean Harold Cox and including Professors Les Boden, Josee Dupuis, and Suzette Levenson and outgoing Associate Dean Mark Prashker. She began her new role at SPH on December 14.