NYU President John Sexton and Provost David McLaughlin today announced that Thomas J. Carew, a distinguished neurobiologist, has been named the Dean of NYU’s Faculty of Arts and Science. He is currently the Bren Professor and Chair of the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at the University of California, Irvine. Dean Carew’s appointment will be effective July 1, 2011.

NYU Names Neurobiologist Thomas J. Carew Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science
Thomas J. Carew

NYU President John Sexton and Provost David McLaughlin today announced that Thomas J. Carew, a distinguished neurobiologist, has been named the Dean of NYU’s Faculty of Arts and Science.  He is currently the Bren Professor and Chair of the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at the University of California, Irvine.  Dean Carew’s appointment will be effective July 1, 2011.

The Faculty of Arts and Science is NYU’s oldest and largest school.  In recent years, NYU has invested significantly in its arts and science core; the Partners Initiative increased tenured and tenure-track faculty by 20 percent, the largest increase in the University’s history, and has provided for significant new and renovated academic space.

John Sexton said, “The key measure of a university is the quality of the people it is able to attract to its community of scholars.  That is why I am so pleased by Thomas Carew’s appointment as Dean of FAS.  He is a distinguished scientist and dedicated teacher; he impressed the search committee with his far-sighted view of higher education, his unswerving commitment to academic excellence, his focus on undergraduate learning, and his personal warmth.  The presence of someone of his caliber as dean is a profound validation of our drive for academic excellence and our vision for creating a global network university.  On behalf of the entire NYU community, I welcome him.

“I am very grateful to the members of the search committee, chaired by Professor Sylvain Cappell, for their service to NYU.  Few appointments are more important to this University than this one, and by dint of their hard work, discernment, and professionalism, the committee discharged their duties superbly and found an outstanding dean for FAS.

“And we all owe a debt of gratitude to Jess Benhabib, who has served as Interim Dean of FAS.  Deeply respected member of the NYU community, esteemed University citizen, accomplished and excellent academic leader – we thank you, Jess.”

David McLaughlin said, “Without question, our new FAS dean had to possess stellar scholarly credentials, because excellence is at the core of what we do.  But in Thomas Carew, this scholarly excellence is accompanied by so much more: a person who has thought deeply about teaching and learning – both as scholar and teacher; a person with a demonstrable record of service to the institutions at which he has worked, and active engagement with their planning for the future; and a person who impressed us all in the recruitment process as understanding NYU’s character and our aspirations.  I welcome Dean Carew to NYU; I commend the search committee for this outstanding outcome; and I thank Jess Benhabib for his service and excellent leadership as Interim Dean.”

Since 2000, Dean Carew has been the Bren Professor and Chair of the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at the University of California, Irvine, where he also served, among other roles, as Chair of the Task Force on Undergraduate Education, a member of the system-wide Commission on Undergraduate Education, and a member of the Neuroscience Task Force for Graduate Education.  From 1983 to 1999, he was the John M. Musser Professor of Psychology and Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at Yale University, where he also served, among other positions, as Chair of the Department of Psychology, Chair of the Yale College Executive Committee, and Chair of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Review Committee.  Prior to that, he was a member of the faculty for several years in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons.  Before joining Columbia University, he was an instructor in experimental psychology at the NYU School of Medicine.

Dean Carew’s research interests center on the behavioral, cellular, and molecular analyses of learning and memory, and information processing in identified neuronal networks.

He is the author of over 150 scholarly articles, and his work has been published in Science, Nature, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Neuron, the Journal of Neuroscience, the Journal of Neurochemistry, and the Journal of Neurophysiology, among other peer-reviewed publications.

He is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) MERIT Award, an NIMH Career Development Award, Yale’s Dylan Hixon Prize for Excellence in Teaching in the Natural Sciences, and the Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award at the University of California, Irvine.  He is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and was Chair of its Neuroscience Section; he was President of the Society for Neuroscience; he is an elected Fellow of Division 6 of the American Psychological Association (APA) and an APA Distinguished Scientist Lecturer; and he is an elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, among many other honors.

He received his Bachelor’s degree cum laude from Loyola University of Los Angeles in 1966; he received an M.A. in physiological psychology from California State College at Los Angeles in 1967, and his Ph.D. in physiological psychology from the University of California, Riverside in 1970.  He also received an honorary M.A. from Yale University in 1984.

 Dean Carew has been married to his college sweetheart, Mary Jo, for 46 years. They have two daughters and four grandchildren.

                                     

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