Faculty Representative
Suzanne Barbour is Dean of The Graduate School, Vice Provost for Graduate Education, and Professor of Cell Biology at Duke University. Previously, she was dean of the graduate school at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (2019-2022) and the University of Georgia (2015-2019). She was a program director at the National Science Foundation (NSF) from 2013-2015 and was faculty in the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) School of Medicine from 1993-2015. Suzanne’s research focuses on lipid signaling and phospholipases A2 and she has had funding from NSF and the National Institutes of Health. Suzanne’s commitment to broadening participation in STEM began when she led the graduate program in biochemistry and molecular biology and directed research training in the Center on Health Disparities at VCU, for which she won the Presidential Award for Community Multicultural Enrichment (2010). Since then, she has been involved in several efforts to broaden participation, including service on the Minority Affairs Committee of the American Society for Biochemistry & Molecular Biology; 2014-2021), the Council of Graduate Schools Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Committee (2018-2019), and as a coach for postdoctoral scholars in the NIH Maximizing Opportunities for Scientific and Academic Independent Careers program. Since 2018, Suzanne has served on the Committee on Equal Opportunities in Science and Engineering, which advises the NSF on issues related to broadening participation. She is currently its Chair. Suzanne graduated from Rutgers University with a B.S. in chemistry and earned a Ph.D. in molecular biology and genetics from The Johns Hopkins University.