Interim Executive Dean and Vice Provost Janet M. Box-Steffensmeier has appointed Luis Casian, professor and chair of the Department of Mathematics, to serve as the new divisional dean for natural and mathematical sciences for the College of Arts and Sciences. He will begin his service in this new role beginning Aug. 1.
 
Casian has been with the Department of Mathematics since 1988, serving as chair since 2010 — a role to which he has been reappointed twice. He received his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; his MS from the Centro de Investigación del Instituto Politécnico, Mexico City; and his BS in mathematics from the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Iztapalapa, Mexico City. Casian’s areas of expertise include representation theory, real semisimple Lie groups and integrable systems.
 
During his tenure, Casian made multiple positive changes that have improved the quality, outreach and reputation of the Department of Mathematics. While chair, he saw the number of undergraduate math majors more than double, the percentage of tenure-track faculty from underrepresented groups increase, and the introduction of new professional master’s programs after an outward-looking reexamination of the department’s graduate offerings. In partnership with the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez, Casian also developed Sampling Advanced Mathematics for Minority Students (SAMMS), a summer program which aims to inspire talented undergraduates from underrepresented groups to pursue graduate school in STEM fields. Under his leadership, strategic changes in the graduate program have resulted in improvements in the graduation rate, fellowship success, and contributed to a continuing rise in graduate rankings.
 
As Casian transitions away from his role as department chair, Jean-François Lafont, professor of mathematics, has graciously agreed to serve as interim chair of the department for the coming year.