Longtime UofL professors step into temporary dean roles

Two veteran UofL professors have stepped up to fill decanal roles temporarily, while one school conducts a national search and another school awaits its new hire.

Dr. Gail DePuy was named acting dean of the J.B. Speed School of Engineering as of July 1, taking over for Dr. John Usher, who stepped down after two years as acting dean.

DePuy has been a part of the Speed School since 1995 and most recently has served as an associate dean for Academic and Student Affairs. A professor of Industrial Engineering, DePuy’s research focus is in the areas of production planning, health care engineering and operations research.

She has written more than 80 technical papers and has served as principal investigator or co-principal investigator on more than $2.4 million of funded research.

DePuy is a professional engineer and member of the Institute of Industrial Engineers, Institute of Operations Research and Management Science, and American Society for Engineering Education.

She earned her bachelor’s from North Carolina State University (1988), a master’s degree from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (1990), a masters’ degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology (1992), and a PhD from the Georgia Institute of Technology (1995).

Usher is taking a sabbatical through December and will return to UofL in January as a tenured professor in industrial engineering.

A national search for a permanent dean will begin in the fall.

Meanwhile, Brandeis School of Law Professor Lars Smith is filling in as interim dean prior to Colin Crawford’s arrival Jan. 1.

Smith, who holds the Samuel J. Stallings Chair in Law, arrived at UofL in 2000. He teaches in the areas of intellectual property and business law and incorporates practice-based exercises into his Trademark Law and Business Planning courses.

In 2012, Smith received the University of Louisville Distinguished Faculty Award in Teaching. In 2011, he received a Fulbright Scholarship Award to teach at Zhongnan University of Economics and Law in Wuhan, China, where he taught Chinese Masters of Law students about U.S. intellectual property.

He has been serving as associate dean for academic affairs at Brandeis for the past two years. Smith received his JD from the New England School of Law (1992).

Crawford was appointed dean of Brandeis in April. 

He is currently finishing his obligation as the Robert C. Cudd Professor of Environmental Law at Tulane University, where he also directs Tulane’s International Development Studies in the School of Liberal Arts and the Payson Graduate Program in Global Development in the School of Law. He succeeds Susan Duncan, who was recently named dean of the University of Mississippi School of Law.