In an email sent to the campus community Feb. 22, Melanie Stein, provost and senior vice president of academic affairs, announced that Christina Moylan will serve as the Dean of the School of Health Sciences and Human Performance. Moylan will start March 1. 

Moylan became interim dean of the School of HSHP for the 2023–24 academic year after Linda Petrosino ’78 retired as the dean. Before she was interim dean, Moylan served as associate provost for graduate and professional studies and as director of public health emergency preparedness in the 2020–21 academic year.

In the email, Stein congratulated Moylan and said she looked forward to Moylan’s leadership. 

“I am confident that, in partnership with the faculty, she will design a strategic plan that enables the school to be agile in its preparation of students, bring an entrepreneurial and innovative lens to academic programming, and remain a top choice for undergraduate and graduate students,” Stein said in the announcement.

Stein also thanked the HSHP Dean Search Committee, which was co-chaired by Kari Brossard Stoos, associate professor and associate chair in the Department of Health Sciences and Public Health, and Chris Hummel, clinical professor and chair of the Department of Exercise Science and Athletic Training. The committee held three presentations for the campus community from potential candidates Feb. 12–15. 

Kristin Landis-Piwowar, associate provost for academic affairs at Oakland University, was the first candidate who visited campus Feb. 12 and Donald Simpson, special assistant to the vice president for academic affairs at the University of Louisiana Monroe, was the final candidate who visited Feb. 15

In her candidate presentation Feb. 14, Moylan outlined two goals that she said she wished to add to improve the current vision of the school. 

Moylan said that in addition to one of the goals being gaining recognition, the school of HSHP should also focus on retaining students to build an inclusive healthcare workforce and share the school’s expertise with the community off-campus.

“The first [added vision is about] who we’re bringing to the school, how we’re keeping them here, as well as their level of preparation to work in a diverse world and with diverse populations,” Moylan said in the presentation. “The second is that I really want to lean into the expertise that we have at the institution, and particularly within our school … to be solution-oriented.”