Announcing the Glen de Vries Dean of the Mellon College of Science

Dear Members of the Carnegie Mellon Community:

I am pleased to announce that following a global search, Dr. Barbara Shinn-Cunningham has been selected as the next Glen de Vries Dean of the Mellon College of Science (MCS). Dr. Shinn-Cunningham will assume her position as dean on January 1, 2025, and Dr. Curtis A. Meyer has graciously agreed to continue in an interim capacity until that time. Curtis has done an outstanding job leading the college during this important transition period.

Dr. Shinn-Cunningham joined Carnegie Mellon in 2018 as the founding director of the Neuroscience Institute, which will appoint its next director in the coming months, and the George A. and Helen Dunham Cowan Professor of Auditory Neuroscience. She holds courtesy appointments in the departments of Psychology, Biomedical Engineering, and Electrical and Computer Engineering. In addition to directing the Neuroscience Institute, she leads two large-scale Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative projects funded by the Office of Naval Research, each using researchers from different backgrounds at different institutions to address problems that cannot be solved through individual disciplines. Before joining CMU, she spent 21 years on the faculty of Boston University.

An author of more than 200 scientific articles, Dr. Shinn-Cunningham is recognized for her expertise in spatial hearing, auditory attention and sensory hearing deficits. She has degrees in electrical engineering from Brown University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research combines behavioral, neuroimaging and computational methods to understand how the brain processes sound. Among her many awards and recognitions, she has received honors from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Whitaker Foundation and the Vannevar Bush Fellows program. You can learn more about Dr. Shinn-Cunningham by reading the news story on the Carnegie Mellon website.

When I announced the search in August 2023, a committee of representatives from across MCS and the university convened to guide the search process. The committee carefully listened to the needs of the MCS community, fielding a strong applicant pool to ultimately identify Dr. Shinn-Cunningham as the best person for this critical leadership role. I appreciate the time and thoughtfulness they put into their work.

Please join me in congratulating Barb and the entire community for this exciting next chapter for the Mellon College of Science. 

Sincerely,

James H. Garrett Jr.
Provost and Chief Academic Officer