Neal B. Abraham

Neal Abraham came to DePauw in 1998 after a distinguished career as a research physicist, teacher, and faculty leader at Bryn Mawr College. He currently serves as Executive Vice President, while continuing to fill the roles of Vice President for Academic Affairs, Dean of the Faculty, and Professor of Physics and Astronomy.

Dean Abraham continues his career-long interests in the study of chaos and nonlinear dynamics in lasers and other optical systems and in improvements in math and science education. His commitments at DePauw have included the enhancement of faculty opportunities and the recognition of faculty achievements in teaching and scholarly research; innovations in the uses of educational technology across the undergraduate curriculum; major building projects, some completed and some in progress, to upgrade DePauw's facilities for study of science and of the fine arts; recruitment and retention of a diverse faculty; gender equity; and mentoring of junior faculty (over half the current faculty members have been hired during his tenure).

A past president of the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR), Dean Abraham is also a long-time member of Project Kaleidoscope, a movement for the reform of math and science teaching in higher education. He has worked on professional society and National Research Council panels on undergraduate education, and has recently been named a director of the American Council of Academic Deans (ACAD). Work he and his colleagues did to build the number of women physics majors at Bryn Mawr was recognized in 1998 by the Presidential Award for Mentoring. He has served on the Committee on the Status of Women in Physics of the American Physical Society and is a member of the Women's Studies affiliated faculty at DePauw.