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Kozlowski named public health dean
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“He clearly has all of the ‘tickets’ to become an outstanding dean, based upon an exemplary background as a well-funded public health investigator with a forte in studying human behavior as it relates to personal and population health, as well as very strong teaching, mentoring and administrative skills.”
Lynn T. Kozlowski, professor and chair of the Department of Health Behavior and interim dean of the School of Public Health and Health Professions since September 2007, has been appointed dean of the school after a national search.
Kozlowski’s appointment, which is effective immediately, has been announced by David L. Dunn, vice president for health sciences.
He succeeds Maurizio Trevisan, founding dean of the school, who left UB to become vice chancellor and chief executive officer of the University of Nevada Health Sciences System, the Nevada System of Higher Education.
In announcing the appointment, Dunn noted that Kozlowski readily rose to the top of a strong group of academicians in the candidate pool.
“He clearly has all of the ‘tickets’ to become an outstanding dean, based upon an exemplary background as a well-funded public health investigator with a forte in studying human behavior as it relates to personal and population health, as well as very strong teaching, mentoring and administrative skills,” Dunn said.
He pointed out that an interesting aspect of being an internal candidate is that while being considered for a position, one’s skills are under intense scrutiny in real time.
“Lynn demonstrated the ability to make hard decisions in an extremely thoughtful fashion, begin the necessary reorganization to implement the school’s self-study program in preparation for its first accreditation, and assure all members of the faculty and staff that their opinions were valued and clearly being considered,” he said. “I have enjoyed working with him in his interim role and I am very pleased to be able to continue doing so in his new capacity as the permanent dean.”
Richard Buchanan, dean of the School of Dental Medicine and chair of the search committee, agreed that Kozlowski quickly emerged as a leading candidate, noting his “demonstrated record of success in building multidisciplinary academic programs, his effectiveness as interim dean and his stature as a leader in the global health community.”
“In the committee's view, the university and the Academic Health Center are fortunate to have someone of Dr. Kozlowski's stature and experience to lead the future development of the School of Public Health and Health Professions.”
An international leader in the field of smoking cessation, Kozlowski joined the faculty of the School of Public Health and Health Professions in 2006 to head the then-new Department of Health Behavior. He previously was professor and head of biobehavioral health in the College of Health and Human Development at Pennsylvania State University.
Kozlowski's primary interest is smoking and health. He has published more than 100 papers in the field, and research in that area is a major component of the UB Department of Health Behavior.
A graduate of Wesleyan University, he holds two master's degrees and a doctorate from Columbia University. While at Columbia, he held a two-year National Science Foundation Traineeship and a two-year New York State Herbert Lehman Fellowship.
He also spent a year at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine on a National Institute of Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse postdoctoral traineeship.
Prior to his tenure at Penn State, Kozlowski taught at the University of Toronto for 10 years and was on the staff at the Addiction Research Foundation in Toronto for 11 years. He was head of the foundation's Biobehavioral Research on Tobacco Use unit when he joined Penn State's biobehavioral health faculty in 1990. He was named head of the department in 1993.
Kozlowski has served on the editorial board of several scientific journals and is a fellow of the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research. In 2003, he won the Pauline Schmitt Russell Distinguished Research Career Award from the College of Health and Human Development at Penn State.
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