Information About the Deans

Debasish (Deba) Dutta, Dean

Debasish (Deba) Dutta is Associate Provost and Dean of the Graduate College, and Edward William and Jane Marr Gutgsell Professor in the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering. He is a Scholar-in-Residence at the National Academy of Engineering, leading a national study on the lifelong learning needs of working professionals in engineering and science fields. During 2004-2007 he served at the National Science Foundation as Acting Director of the Division of Graduate Education, IGERT Program Director and as Advisor in the Office of Assistant Director, Education and Human Resources. He played a key role in the development of NSF’s Cyberinfrastructure Strategy (Vision for 21st Century Discovery) chairing its Learning and Workforce Development sub-committee.

Dutta received his PhD from Purdue University in 1989, and was on the faculty at the University of Michigan from 1989-2008. His research spans solid modeling, global product development and lifecycle management. He serves on the editorial boards of five journals and has chaired ASME Design Automation Conference (1997), two ACM Solid Modeling Symposia (1999 and 2001), and is the co-founder of the International PLM Conference series. He is a Fellow of ASME and has received several awards including the ASME Design Automation award and the NSF Director’s Award for Collaborative Excellence. He has been the William Mong Scholar at the University of Hong Kong and a Guest Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China. He is a member of AAAS, ASEE and SME.

Rebecca Bryant, Assistant Dean

Rebecca Bryant joined the Graduate College in May 2000. As Assistant Dean and Director of Career Advising and External Relations, she provides leadership for numerous programs to serve graduate student career and professional development at Illinois, and she serves as a regular contributor to the Chronicle of Higher Education. She has oversight for the annual Information Fair for Incoming Graduate Students, Symposium on Graduate Education, and the new Mentoring Workshop for Faculty, implemented in 2006 as part of the CGS PhD Completion Project, as well as a comprehensive series of career development events for graduate students. In addition, she is actively involved in the National Research Council (NRC) Assessment of Research Doctoral Programs. She previously served on the University of Illinois's UI Integrate Project, leading the design and implementation of pre-registration processes. Bryant is also active on campus as the Vice Chair of the Council of Academic Professionals, chair of the CAPE Awards committee, and serves on the campus Senate Executive Committee.

Bryant attended Butler University and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM), and earned her PhD in musicology from the University of Illinois. Her dissertation explored the influence of progressive era reform on social dance practices in Chicago, particularly the evolution of cabarets and ballrooms. She actively serves on the board of directors for Champaign County CASA, a not-for-profit organization committed to advocating for the best interests of abused and neglected children. In her spare time she enjoys writing, sewing, gardening, dancing, and travel.

Andrea Golato, Associate Dean

Andrea Golato is an Associate Professor in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures. She is an affiliated faculty member in the Second Language Acquisition and Teacher Education (SLATE) Program, the European Union Center, the Center for Translation Studies, and the Academy for Entrepreneurial Leadership. Her active research program in conversation analysis explores the interconnections between interaction, culture and grammar.  She has advised numerous graduate students in German and within the wider SLATE community, and has received the Campus Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Mentoring. Andrea holds a Diplom in Translation Studies from the Johannes-Gutenberg Universität Mainz-Germersheim and a Ph.D. in German Applied Linguistics from the University of Texas at Austin.

Jennifer F. Hamer, Associate Dean

Jennifer Hamer received her Ph.D. from the University of Texas-Austin and is an Associate Professor in the Department of African American Studies. Her research and scholarship emphasize the study of families and working class communities.  She has published in varying journals such as The Journal of Marriage and the Family, Journal of Black Studies, and the Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare. In addition, she is the author of What it Means to Be Daddy: Fatherhood for Black Men Living Away from Their Children (Columbia University Press, 2001) and a forthcoming book, Abandoned in the Heartland: Living in East St. Louis, Illinois (University of California Press).  She is the founding and current Editor of Black Women, Gender and Families, a new Black Women’s Studies journal and former Editor of Race & Society:  The Official Journal of the Association of Black Sociologists.  She has been a part of the Illinois faculty since 2004 and her service to the University has included participation on several College of Liberal Arts and campus-wide committees; interim head of the department of African American Studies; and Coordinator of the University of Illinois and The HistoryMakers, Inc. three-campus partnership developed to make accessible one of the largest audiovisual archives on famous and unsung heroes of the Black American experience

Jimmy Hsia, Associate Dean

Jimmy Hsia is Professor of Mechanical Science and Engineering and has been on the Engineering Faculty at Illinois since 1991 after receiving his Ph.D. from MIT.  In 2005-2007, he served at the National Science Foundation as the Founding Director of Nano and Bio Mechanics Program, and was instrumental in establishing the “Cellular and Biomolecular Engineering” initiative for the Office of Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation (EFRI) in the Engineering Directorate. Hsia is the Principal Investigator of an NSF grant on “GEM4 Summer School on Cellular and Molecular Mechanics”, a series of 5 summer/winter schools for graduate students, postdocs, and junior faculty members, held at Caltech (2008), UIUC (2009), UT-Austin (2010), Georgia Tech (2011), and MIT (2012). He is co-PI on a multi-institution NSF-STC proposal “Emergent Behavior of Integrated Cellular Systems” (lead institution: MIT), which has been selected for a NSF site visit. Hsia serves as the lead PI at Illinois and is responsible for the interdisciplinary education component of the STC. He is also co-PI on an (final round submission) IGERT proposal “Training the next generation of researchers in Cellular and Molecular Mechanics and Bionanotechnology (CMMB)”.  Hsia’s research is in mechanics of materials and nano and bio mechanics and he is Fellow of ASME and Associate of Center for Advanced Study at UIUC.

Anne Kopera, Assistant Dean

Anne Kopera joined the Graduate College in September 2007. As Assistant Dean she is responsible for Graduate Student Academic Services (GSAS). GSAS provides services to currently enrolled graduate students and graduate programs in the areas of registration, records, student petitions, special situations, and conflict resolution.

A native of Chicago, Kopera completed her A.B., M.A. (both in English) and M. Ed. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She worked for NETCHE, a consortium of small Colleges in Nebraska, providing career and academic support services. She then coordinated advising services for the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where she eventually served as Director of the Arts and Sciences Advising Center and Assistant Dean for Advising Services.

Deborah Richie, Executive Assistant Dean

Deborah Richie began her career at Illinois in 1988 and joined the Graduate College in October 2001. As Executive Assistant Dean, her primary responsibility is the administration of campus assistantship and fellowship policies. In this role, Richie works with the Fellowship Board to manage campus-level graduate fellowship programs totaling some $3 million. This responsibility includes fellowship program design as well as the redistribution of resources to help achieve the campus goals for graduate education. Richie is the Principal Investigator on the National Science Foundation Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) grant, serves as the Institutional representative for a number of externally funded fellowship programs, including the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship and the Diversifying Higher Education Faculty in Illinois programs. Richie currently serves as the president of the Illinois Association of Graduate Schools (IAGS) and Review Panel Chair for the American Association of University Women (AAUW) Career Development Grant program. Richie received her Ed.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and master's degree from New York University.