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In a message to college faculty and staff, Dean Jason Young announced that the Associate Dean for Research and Academic Affairs role will transition to two positions, effective August 1.

Associate Professor Katherine Ambroziak has served in the joint role since 2016 when she was named interim associate dean and later in its full capacity.

“In light of the incredible work Katherine has done as associate dean for academic affairs and research over the last three years, and based on what I have seen her managing across both roles,  I believe that the college is at a point where we need to split academic affairs workflows from research workflows, and move forward with two associate deans,” said Young. “This will allow us to go to the next level in both areas of college leadership.”

Ambroziak will continue to serve as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, overseeing curricular development, compliance and accreditation, student academic discipline, and supporting student organizations and events.

Professor Avigail Sachs has been named Interim Associate Dean for Research and began in the role August 1.

Sachs joined the college in 2009 and was promoted to full professor earlier this year. She is a historian and theorist of architecture and landscape, with a particular interest in the relationship between design and research in the formation of design disciplines and professions in the United States. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, where her dissertation focused on post-World War II architectural research in American schools. Her book Environmental Design: Architecture, Politics, and Science in Postwar America received the SESAH Award of Excellence in 2019.

Since moving to East Tennessee, Sachs has focused on the Tennessee Valley Authority and its impact on the environment and society. Her upcoming book, The Mechanized Landscape: Statecraft and Environment in the Tennessee Valley Authority, co-authored with Micah Rutenberg, is set for release in late 2025. The TVA is also the subject of her 2023 release, The Garden in the Machine: Planning and Democracy in the Tennessee Valley Authority, which focused on the transformation of utopian ideals into professional practice in architecture, landscape architecture and regional planning.

“Dr. Sachs is well suited for leading the college in the research area,” Young said. “Given that her own scholarly interests have helped position the role of research in schools of design historically, she will bring focus to our strategic initiative to build a more robust research culture among college faculty, which in turn will elevate the teaching and learning culture for our students.”

Ambroziak joined the college in 2004 and was named associate professor in 2014. Her research examines how designers and users become conscious of their built and natural environment and what this may mean to the generation of healthy perceptions and memory. She focuses on spatial theory related to sensory response and body perception, ritual theory, and contemporary memorial theory. This research finds application in the community engaged Odd Fellows Cemetery Reclamation, an initiative in partnership with �����Ƶ Re-Animation Coalition and the City of �����Ƶ. The project has been recognized by the Association for Gravestone Studies, Faith & Form Magazine and The Interfaith Forum on Religion, Art and Architecture, and AIA East Tennessee.

Ambroziak has been recognized at the university as the 2024 James R. Cox Professor acknowledging her excellence in teaching, scholarship and service, and the 2015 UT Excellence in Academic Outreach. She has been awarded the national Diversity Achievement Award by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, the preeminent organization in architectural education, as well as the Fred & Rosalee Oakley Award, a national recognition from the Association of Gravestone Studies.”

The college will begin a formal internal search for an associate dean of research during the spring semester.