2 UT Dallas STEM Schools Announce Jointly Appointed Associate Dean

Dr. Yvette E. Pearson, a globally-recognized leader in STEM education and research, is now an associate dean in the University’s School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics (NSM) and Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science (Jonsson School).

Dr. Stephanie G. Adams, dean of the Jonsson School, holder of the Lars Magnus Ericsson Chair at UT Dallas and professor of systems engineering, said: “Yvette is a consummate professional and academician well respected in the engineering education community. Her knowledge and experience about how the best schools not only move forward, but also stay at the forefront of educational best practices will benefit UT Dallas STEM students for years to come.”

With 75% of the position for NSM, Pearson will work with Hyndman to lead the school through planned enrollment growth and strategic expansion of research and academic programs. Pearson will guide the development, implementation and evaluation of short- and long-term strategic goals for NSM. She will also provide leadership in areas such as faculty workload, promotion, tenure and staff development, while helping to streamline policies and procedures.

With 25% of the position for the Jonsson School, Pearson, a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) and commissioner on ABET’s Engineering Accreditation Commission, will promote an organizational culture that values and uses data-driven decisions focusing on continuous improvement and accountability. She will oversee the planning and execution of critical school effectiveness functions including accreditation and compliance.

Pearson’s work will also facilitate cooperative efforts between the schools, assessing cross-cutting initiatives and working with other leaders to identify opportunities that align with institutional goals.

“I am most excited about the possibilities on UTD’s horizon related to sustainability and the role I’ll be able to play as a formal bridge between NSM and the Jonsson School under the visionary leadership of Hyndman and Adams,” Pearson said. “The door is wide open with opportunities to leverage our existing efforts toward creating new, convergent curricula and research in this space; and with our campus placing a high priority on sustainability, we have a roughly 700-acre ‘laboratory’ to translate education and research to practice.”

“The door is wide open with opportunities to leverage our existing efforts toward creating new, convergent curricula and research in this space; and with our campus placing a high priority on sustainability, we have a roughly 700-acre ‘laboratory’ to translate education and research to practice.”

— Dr. Yvette E. Pearson
New Associate Dean in NSM and the Jonsson School

Pearson most recently served as vice president for campus resources and support at UT Dallas, and prior to that, vice president for diversity, equity and inclusion. In that role, she collaborated with team members in the Jonsson School and the University Office of Undergraduate Education on a $1.5 million NSF grant to provide scholarships and other support for transfer students from low-income backgrounds. Her team’s efforts led to the University’s first Insight Into Diversity Higher Education Excellence in Diversity Award in 2023.

Before joining UT Dallas in 2021, Pearson served as associate dean for accreditation, assessment and strategic initiatives in the George R. Brown School of Engineering at Rice University. During her five-year tenure there, she secured roughly $8.7 million in collaborative NSF-funded grants, including one to advance mathematics accessibility for students with disabilities, and she led the development and implementation of a policy for training and evaluating teaching assistants.

Pearson served as a program director in the Division of Undergraduate Education at NSF during the last three years of her nine-year appointment at The University of Texas at Arlington, where she was a senior lecturer in civil engineering. As associate department chair, she worked collaboratively with College of Engineering administrators to create, streamline and enforce policies and practices that impacted over 3,000 undergraduate students.  As a non-tenure system faculty member, she collaborated to secure roughly $1.8 million in funding to advance STEM education research. One of the NSF-funded grants led to the establishment of UT Arlington’s minor in sustainable engineering.

Pearson’s career started at her alma mater, Southern University and A&M College in Baton Rouge, where she earned tenure as a faculty member in civil and environmental engineering. In that role, she was selected by students five times as the department’s most outstanding faculty member in recognition of her teaching, advising and mentoring. She secured just under $1 million in funding to support student success initiatives, which included an NSF-funded scholarship program for students from low-income backgrounds and collaborative funding to enhance environmental engineering and science teaching laboratories.

“My leadership is grounded in a clear vision of societal impacts of higher education,” she said. “This includes the social mobility experienced by families of students who attain degrees and enter the workforce as well as the work our graduates perform in their careers. To achieve the best outcomes, we must move away from the mindset of solving problems for people; instead, we must be able to solve problems with people — all people.”

Pearson currently is an advisory board member for the American Council of Engineering Companies Research Institute, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Scholarships in STEM (S-STEM) Resource and Evaluation Center, and the Cerebral Palsy Foundation’s Just Say Hi initiative, which is focused on furthering the inclusion of students with disabilities in schools throughout the nation. She also serves on advisory boards for NSF-funded projects at several universities.

Among Pearson’s numerous awards are the Society of Women Engineers’ Distinguished Engineering Educator Award, ASCE’s Professional Practice Ethics and Leadership Award, ABET’s Claire L. Felbinger Award for Diversity and Inclusion, the University of Texas System Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award and ASCE’s President’s Medal.

Pearson earned her bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and master’s degree in chemistry from Southern University, PhD in engineering and applied science from the University of New Orleans and graduate certificate in educational research methodology from the University of Illinois at Chicago.