Former Dean Crossley stepping in as interim at law school

Professor Mary Crossley will become interim dean of the School of Law effective July 1, according to an announcement from Provost Ann Cudd.

She will follow Professor Haider Ala Hamoudi, who stepped in when Amy Wildermuth stepped down as dean on Jan. 23 after almost five years in the position. Cudd said that when Hamoudi agreed to serve as interim dean, she promised him that he could begin a sabbatical at the end of June.

Crossley came to Pitt in 2005 as dean of the law school and served in that position through 2012. During that time, she developed initiatives aimed at curricular reform, innovation programming, and promoting diversity, Cudd’s announcement said. In 2013, she was chosen as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Public Health Law Scholar in Residence. Prior to Pitt, she taught law at Florida State University and the University of California Hastings College of the Law.

She is director of the Health Law Program at Pitt Law. Her book “Embodied Injustice: Race, Disability, and Health” was released by Cambridge University Press in 2022.

She holds a J.D. from Vanderbilt University and a B.A. in history from the University of Virginia.

A search for the next permanent dean will begin in the fall.