This email is being sent to all CLAS faculty, staff, and graduate students.
Dear College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Community,
With mixed emotions, I am writing to announce that Maggy Tomova, our Associate Dean for the Natural, Mathematical, and Social Sciences, is leaving the University of Iowa. Dr. Tomova has accepted the position of Dean of the College of Sciences at the University of Central Florida. She will begin her new position on October 18, 2021.
Dean Tomova first joined the faculty of our Department of Mathematics as a Visiting Assistant Professor in 2005, after earning her PhD at the University of California, Santa Barbara. After a brief stint as an instructor at Rice University, she returned as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in 2008. In 2017, she became the DEO of the Department of Mathematics, and was named CLAS Associate Dean for the Natural, Mathematical, and Social Sciences in December 2019.
Dr. Tomova is an outstanding administrator, researcher, teacher, and mentor. As Associate Dean, she has guided 17 departments through all of the significant disruptions and changes that our college has faced over the past two years, and has been an essential member of the CLAS Senior Leadership Team.
With a primary research interest in low dimensional topology and knot theory, as well as in the applications of topological results to the life sciences, she has published prolifically and has been in demand nationally as a presenter at universities and conferences. Her research has been supported largely by National Science Foundation grants, including a CAREER grant in 2011. CLAS named her Dean's Scholar in 2012.
Dean Tomova's accomplishments as an instructor extend beyond her excellence in undergraduate teaching. She has successfully advised eight graduate students through completion of their PhDs. As Director of the UI's Summer Math Institute from 2011-2015, she helped guide promising high school students toward college-level mathematics, and she was Assistant Director and Research Mentor for an NSF-funded REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) at California State University Channel Islands. Her dedication to bringing students from underrepresented populations into the mathematics discipline is inspiring, and has helped shape her department's national reputation for diversity, equity, and inclusion.
This brief announcement doesn’t allow me to adequately convey the depth of Maggy's contributions to the UI, CLAS, Department of Mathematics, and her discipline. I cannot thank her enough for her extraordinary commitment and service to CLAS. Speaking on behalf of her colleagues on the CLAS Senior Leadership Team, I wish her the greatest success in this next step in her career. We are proud to have served with her, and are excited for the new opportunities that her new position will bring her and her family.
We will announce our plans for handling Dean Tomova's portfolio soon. In the meantime, please direct questions about the transition to me at sara-sanders@uiowa.edu.
All the best,
Sara
Sara Sanders, PhD, MSW
Dean and Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
UI Alumni Association Dean's Chair
in the Liberal Arts and Sciences
The University of Iowa
