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Graduate College 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 and a Professor of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering. He has extensive experience in higher education and policy making.  He is a Scholar-in-Residence at the National Academy of Engineering, where he recently completed a study on the lifelong learning needs of U.S. engineering professionals and currently leads an NSF funded national study about education for innovation.

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. He was a selected to be a member of the Illinois team in the 2010 Education Leaders Institute of the National Endowment for the Arts.

Dutta received his Ph.D. from Purdue University in 1989, and was on the faculty at the University of Michigan from 1989-2008. He has published extensively in the area of computer aided design and manufacturing, and currently focuses on interoperability issues in product lifecycle management.  He serves on the GRE Board and the TOEFL Board (both of ETS), the Board of Illinois Consortium for 21st Century Schools, a 501c(3) for K-12 education, and on the editorial boards of several journals. A Fellow of AAAS and ASME, he has received several awards, co-founded the IFIP International PLM Conference and 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 ASEE and SME.

 

Associate Deans

 William G. Buttlar, Associate Dean 

Dr. Buttlar is a Professor and Director of Online and Blended Programs in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois. He has received numerous teaching and research awards, including the Rose Award for Teaching Excellence (2004) and the Narbey Khachaturian Faculty Scholar Award, (2005-present).  He has over 150 publications in the area of asphalt materials and pavements and over 30 invited presentations and keynote lectures. He also serves as an Associate Editor for the International Journal of Road Materials and Pavement Design. 

His research specializes in the areas of asphalt materials, performance-related testing, pavement modeling and mechanics, and sustainable pavement solutions. Recent work in Dr. Buttlar’s group has led to the development of a new fracture test for asphalt concrete at low temperatures, called the disk-shaped compact tension test, or DC(T), which is now specified in ASTM D7313-07b. Dr. Buttlar’s research portfolio includes support from the Illinois Department of Transportation, the National Science Foundation, the National Cooperative Highway Research Program, the Federal Aviation Administration, the O’Hare Modernization Project, and industry. Dr. Buttlar is a licensed Professional Engineer in the State of Illinois. He earned his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering at Penn State University in the area of Pavements and Materials in 1996.

Areas within the Graduate College:

  • Academic Programs - Graduate programs and policies (courses, degrees, minors, concentrations, etc.) and program review. Executive Committee and Program sub-committee meetings.
  • Online Programs and Degrees – Co-chair, Committee on Extended Education and External Degrees (new program development and review); Chair, Campus Working Group on Online Graduate Education, and; Member, Coursera Course Review Committee.
  • Professional Science Masters (PSM) – Program development and oversight

Oversees: PSM, Graduate & Professional Admissions, Liaison to Senate Ed Pol

 

Rayvon Fouché, Associate Dean

Rayvon Fouché is an Associate Professor of History, Research Associate Professor in the Information Trust Institute, and a faculty affiliate of the Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies. He has authored or edited three books exploring the multiple intersections and relationships between cultural representation, racial identification, and technological design. Grants and awards from the Illinois Informatics Institute, Illinois Program for the Research in Humanities, Center for Advanced Study, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Science Foundation, and the Smithsonian Institution’s Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation have supported his research and teaching.

Fouché received a B.A. in Humanities from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a Ph.D. from Cornell University in the interdisciplinary field of Science & Technology Studies, and completed a two-year post-doctoral fellowship in African and African-American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis. Prior to joining the faculty in 2006, he taught at Purdue University and Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute. 

Areas within the Graduate College:

  • Diversity Initiatives - Development and implementation of campus wide initiatives to broaden participation of underrepresented minorities in graduate education.
  • Interdisciplinary Initiatives - Development and implementation of formal and informal structures to enhance interdisciplinary opportunities for graduate students (e.g., Focal Point, INTERSECT); IGERT competitions
  • Graduate Fellowships – Campus competitions, outreach to foundation

Oversees: Educational Equity Programs, Fellowships

 

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.

 

Areas within the Graduate College:
  • Academic Programs - All aspects related to graduate program management (courses, degrees, minors, concentrations, etc.) and program review. Executive Committee and Program sub-committee meetings.
  • Mentoring Programs - Develop programs to improve mentoring and to assess graduate education effectiveness
  • Interdisciplinary Initiatives - Development and implementation of formal and informal structures to enhance interdisciplinary opportunities for graduate students (e.g., Focal Point, INTERSECT)
Oversees: Career Services

 

Sarah Theule Lubienski   

Dr. Lubienski is a Professor of Mathematics Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, College of Education.  Her research focuses on inequities in students’ mathematics outcomes and the policies and practices that shape those outcomes.  She examines social class, race/ethnicity, and gender in large-scale studies using national datasets, as well as in smaller, classroom-based studies.  Dr. Lubienski has chaired the National Assessment of Educational Progress Research Special Interest Group and is is a member of the American Educational Research Association’s Grants Governing Board.  Her work has been funded by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the National Center of Education Statistics, the Illinois State Board of Education, and the Fulbright Program.  
 
At the University of Illinois, she has served as director of the STEM Education Research Collaborative and is the PI and director of the IES-funded Postdoctoral Research Training Program in Mathematics Education.  She has contributed to numerous campus initiatives, including the Gender Equity Council, the I-Promise mentoring program, and the Education Justice Project.  She received the Thomas N. Urban Research Award and the Distinguished Scholar Award from the College of Education.  She holds a Ph.D. in Curriculum, Teaching and Educational Policy from Michigan State University.

Areas within the Graduate College:
 

  • Academic services for graduate students, including registration, petitions, and conflict resolution
  • Graduate Program Assessment - Establishing procedures for assessment of on-campus graduate programs
  • Graduate Education Research - Research on graduate education at the University of Illinois

Oversees: Graduate Student Academic Services

 

Assistant Deans

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.

 

Sharee Robinson, Assistant Dean

Sharee Robinson joined the Graduate College in October 2005. As Assistant Dean for Administration and Finance, she manages many of the resources within the college and has primary responsibility for the administration of graduate assistantship and fellowship policies. Robinson provides leadership for the Budget Office, Human Resources, Facilities Management, and the Fellowship Office.  Working closely with the Fellowship Board and the Dean of the Graduate College, Robinson is responsible for administering campus-level graduate fellowships and grant programs totaling some $5.5 million.

Robinson also provides leadership for the Office of External Fellowships and serves as the institutional representative for a number of externally funded fellowship programs, including the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute International Student Research Fellowship, and the Diversifying Higher Education Faculty in Illinois Program.

Robinson received a B.S. in Finance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, College of Business and an MBA from Eastern Illinois University.  After working for FMC Corporation for nine years, she began her career with the University of Illinois in 2001 as a member of the Finance Design and Implementation Team for the UI Integrate Project. She was a manager in University Accounting Services prior to beginning her work in the Graduate College.