Brenner Appointed as New SEAS Dean

Applied mathematics professor Michael P. Brenner has been appointed as the first Associate Dean for Applied Mathematics in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences—a position that he will assume in addition to his longtime role as the College’s director of undergraduate studies in Applied Math.

The announcement came yesterday from the office of Frans A. Spaepen—the SEAS interim dean and the sole figure responsible for selecting Brenner—who said that Brenner was an obvious choice for the position because he currently occupies a central role in the College’s applied math program.

The associate deanship will be filled by a new administrator every two years, alternating between applied math professors with a computer science orientation and those focused on the physical sciences, according to Spaepen.

Brenner will fill a position whose function unifies previously dissociated roles within the school. Speaking of the new office, Spaepen said, “These duties in fact were distributed to a whole lot of people, but many were left to [Brenner] as well.”

As steward of what he calls “Harvard’s quantitative liberal arts degree,” Brenner has overseen significant growth in a program home to a diverse body of undergraduates.

In March, he received the first SEAS Capers and Marion McDonald Award for Excellence in Mentoring and Advising, a prize that recognizes both advising sensitivity and successful curricular experience.

In conjunction with SEAS Assistant Dean for Academic Programs Marie Dahleh, he created Applied Math 50, an overview course that offers concentrators an opportunity to explore what field of applied math most interests them.

Joan Fang ’11, an applied math concentrator currently enrolled in the course, said that lectures typically present a different aspect of the discipline each week—economics, finance, combinatorics.

Fang said that although the class is not required, it provides a useful survey of the material, adding, “I think it’s interesting subject matter, and it’s not terribly stressful.”

Brenner’s new position will give him considerable liberty in proposing new staff, directing student advising, and assessing curricular standards within the school’s applied math program, according to Spaepen.

Brenner himself expressed enthusiasm for the prospect of centralizing his discipline on campus, noting, “The great thing about Applied Math at Harvard is that it exists everywhere.”

—Staff writer Edward-Michael Dussom can be reached at emdussom@fas.harvard.edu.