New Provost

J. Bernard Machen, President

It is with great pleasure that I announce the naming of Janie M. Fouke, dean of Michigan State University’s College of Engineering, as the University of Florida’s new provost and senior vice president for academic affairs. Dr. Fouke will assume her new position August 15, 2005.

A native of Ayden, N.C., Dr. Fouke is a professor of electrical and computer engineering and became Michigan State’s engineering dean in 1999. For four years immediately prior to that, she was the inaugural division director of the newly created division of bioengineering and environmental systems with the National Science Foundation in Washington, D.C.

Dr. Fouke came to academia by way of a somewhat unconventional route. The daughter of a tobacco farmer, she earned a bachelor’s degree in biology with honors from St. Andrews College in 1973 and spent the next two years teaching science in the Scotland County, N.C., public school system.

She then returned to college at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to pursue a master’s in biomedical mathematics and engineering, which she received in 1980. During that time, she was a research assistant in the division of pulmonary diseases. She earned her doctorate in the same field from UNC in 1982.

From 1981 to 1999, Dr. Fouke rose through the faculty ranks in the department of biomedical engineering at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland with teaching and research interests in medical instrument design and development.

She serves on advisory boards for several universities and federal agencies and has earned the status of Fellow of a number of professional societies, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and the Biomedical Engineering Society.

Dr. Fouke will bring a creative, energetic approach to this important position. Her background in transdisciplinary programs will work well at the University of Florida. Please join me in welcoming her to the University community.