Following the departure of AVC Frances Contreras, who will be leaving UC San Diego to commence her appointment as the new Dean of the School of Education at UC Irvine, I am pleased to announce the appointment of Victor Ferreira, Ph.D., as the Interim AVC for Faculty Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, effective December 1, 2021.
Ferreira is a Professor in the Department of Psychology and has been a faculty member at UC San Diego since 1997. His research focuses on the mental and neural processes that underlie the human ability to produce language and communicate successfully. The Language Production Laboratory, which he directs with Psychiatry Professor Tamar Gollan, is supported by the National Institutes of Health. Ferreira has a Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Illinois and a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from McGill University in Montreal, Canada.
A seasoned leader committed to equity, diversity, and inclusion, Ferreira brings a wealth of leadership experience to this role. In addition to serving as a department chair for six years and co-convener of the Council of Chairs for four, he has also chaired the Academic Senate Committee on Academic Personnel and the Committee on Research. Additional leadership experience includes co-directing the Joint Doctoral Program in Language and Communicative Disorders and serving as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Memory and Language. Ferreira was a member of VC-EDI’s Advisory Council on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, served as an EDI Advocate and Influencer, which helped develop UC San Diego’s first strategic plan for Inclusive Excellence, and is also a faculty affiliate of the Triton FirstGen student initiative.
Please join me in welcoming Interim AVC Ferreira. A campuswide search for a full-time successor will commence in winter quarter.