From the President, re: Interim Provost
July 8, 2024
Dear Colleagues,
Greetings! As you know, Dr. Bob Prezant, Southern’s Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, will be leaving the university Aug. 2 to take up the presidency of Farmingdale State University on Long Island. While we prepare to launch a national search for a permanent replacement, I am pleased to announce that we have a highly capable Interim Provost appointment in Dr. Julia Irwin.
During her long and accomplished career at Southern, Julia has demonstrated excellence in teaching, publications, grants activity, and most recently in administrative leadership as Interim Dean of the School of Graduate and Professional Studies.
Julia joined Southern in 2008 and rose through the faculty ranks to earn a full professorship in psychology in 2017. She has an extensive publication record, with her work focused on audiovisual speech perception in children, including those with autism spectrum disorders. Prior to her interim deanship appointment in 2022, Julia was a Senior Research Scientist at Haskins Laboratories and the Director of the LEARN Center at Yale University.
Closing in on being a member of our SPAR million-dollar club, Julia has been Principal Investigator on several grants from the NIH Division of Deafness and Communication Disorders. Importantly, she has also mentored many of our Southern scholars at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. Julia’s wide-ranging extra-curricular contributions include serving on the BOR Faculty Awards Committee, as Coordinator of STEM Grants and Contracts, as a member of PACES, and as the university’s Research Integrity Officer and Director of Research Protection.
Julia is an outstanding academician who fully understands the nuances of being a faculty member and an administrator. As such, she is an ideal choice to serve as Interim Provost. Please join me in welcoming Julia to her new leadership role when she starts her appointment this Friday, July 12.
Sincerely,
Dr. Dwayne Smith
Interim President