Mark Sheridan and Brandy A. Randall have been named associate deans of the NDSU College of Graduate and Interdisciplinary Studies.
Sheridan, James A. Meier and Jordan A. Engberg Professor of biological sciences and director of NDSU’s cellular and molecular biology program, will help obtain institutional training grants for graduate students, recruit and support students through fellowships and develop activities to support graduate scholarships, fellowships and assistantships. He also will maintain his faculty position.
Along with leading student professional and program development, Randall will review and evaluate several aspects of the college to help develop curriculum, program efficacy and activities for graduate students. She also will continue in her role as an associate professor of human development and family science.
Sheridan’s laboratory conducts research on the regulation of growth, development and metabolism of animals. He has received more than $26 million in grants for direct research support and research infrastructure enhancement from several funding agencies, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture and National Institutes of Health.
He has published three books, six book chapters, 131 peer-reviewed journal articles and holds one patent.
Sheridan has been a visiting professor at more than 12 universities around the world, including schools in Brazil, Hong Kong, Japan, Sweden and Taiwan. He is chair of the Division of Comparative Endocrinology for the Society of Comparative and Integrative Biology and a member of the executive committees for the International Federation of Societies for Comparative Endocrinology and North American Society for Comparative Endocrinology.
He serves as editor or associate editor for four scientific journals.
Sheridan has been director of the Regulatory Biosciences Cluster at NDSU and director of the North Dakota Experimental Program to Stimulate Cooperative Research.
Sheridan, from California, earned an undergraduate and master’s degree in zoology from Humboldt State University in Arcata, Calif. He earned a doctorate in zoology at the University of California-Berkeley. Sheridan did postdoctoral research at the University of Washington, and joined the NDSU faculty in 1985.
“Dr. Sheridan has done great work for the Graduate School during his time as interim associate dean,” said David Wittrock, Dean of the College of Graduate and Interdisciplinary Studies. “He has identified many sources of graduate fellowships to help fund our graduate students and has initiated programs that will attract highly qualified graduate students to NDSU from around the world."
Randall’s research focuses on rural youth and involves relational and contextual influences on adolescents’ and young adults’ positive and problem behaviors. She has published 12 journal articles, eight book chapters and two book reviews. She was the first editor for the Society for Research on Adolescences Online News, and has been associate editor of the Journal of Early Adolescence and a consulting editor of Developmental Psychology.
Randall is the associate chair of the Youth Development master’s degree faculty group for the Great Plains Interactive Distance Education Alliance, a consortium of public universities that provides inter-institutional online master’s programs.
She recently was awarded a $1.2 million U.S. Department of Health and Human Services grant for “PREP: Making Healthy Choices.” Randall’s research also has been funded by National Institute of Mental Health, and she has participated in grant and fellowship-funded studies since 1995.
Randall, from Nebraska, earned an undergraduate degree in psychology from Creighton University in Omaha, and earned a master’s degree and doctorate in developmental psychology at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. She joined NDSU in 2002.
“Dr. Randall will focus on implementing new curricula for our doctoral programs. When she was a member of Graduate Council, she chaired the sub-committee that reviewed our doctoral education policies, so she is uniquely suited to help us implement the recommendations that were initiated in that group,” Wittrock said.
NDSU is recognized as one of the nation’s top 108 public and private universities by the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education.