Eboni Zamani-Gallaher, who came to Pitt in 2022 as a professor and associate dean for equity, justice and strategic partnerships in the School of Education, has been named interim dean of the school, starting Aug. 1, by interim Provost Joe McCarthy.
She will succeed Valerie Kinloch, who is returning to her alma mater, Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, N.C., as its next president.
Zamani-Gallaher came to Pitt from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign College of Education, where she was a professor and spent seven years as director of the Office for Community College Research and Leadership. While there, she also worked as associate head of the Department of Education Policy, Organization and Leadership, and as associate dean.
An accomplished scholar whose research has secured funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Zamani-Gallaher’s work focuses on equitable participation in higher education; transfer, access and retention policies; minoritized student populations in marginalized institutional contexts; and racial equity and campus climate in postsecondary education pathways.
Zamani-Gallaher holds a Ph.D. in educational organization and leadership from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and an bachelor’s and masters in general experimental psychology from Western Illinois University.
A national search for the next permanent dean will be launched at a later time.
Kinloch, who had been dean of the school since July 2017, announced in June that she was returning to Johnson C. Smith University, where she also is on the Board of Trustees.
— Susan Jones
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