VanWey will succeed Professor of Engineering David Paine in the role.

The Associate Provost for Academic Space advises on planning and managing space and facilities-related projects in support of the University's academic mission. A critical aspect of the role is serving as a liaison between faculty and Facilities Management, helping to understand and convey the space and infrastructure needs of faculty, and to identify and advocate for approaches and solutions to meet scholarly goals within budgetary parameters.

VanWey brings to this role the essential academic and administrative skills needed to advance this work. She came to Brown in 2008, as a faculty member in Sociology and the interdisciplinary Environmental Change Initiative. Her core research interests lie in the interplay between environmental change, demographic processes, and human well-being in developing countries, especially Brazil. She currently co-directs, with Stephen Porder in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, an innovative research project to evaluate how payments for reforestation affect the economic wellbeing of farmers and environmental conditions on the farm.

Since joining the Brown community, VanWey has contributed to the leadership of several interdisciplinary units. She served as associate director of the Population Studies and Training Center from 2011-2016 and is currently senior deputy director at the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society, a role she will conclude as of January 1, 2017. She holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in Sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Although she will be stepping down from her role as Deputy Director here at IBES, VanWey will continue her appointment as an Institute fellow and will remain an important member of the unit's decision-making coalition.

IBES thanks VanWey for her many contributions to the Institute and offers hearty congratulations on her new role.

Dov Sax, Associate Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and current Deputy Director of Teaching at IBES, will absorb VanWey's role and become the sole Deputy Director at the Institute. Associate Professor of Sociology Scott Frickel will become the new Director of Graduate Studies, and Lecturer Dawn King will become the new Director of Undergraduate Studies.