Marty Krauss appointed Heller School's interim dean

President Frederick M. Lawrence and Provost-elect Lisa M. Lynch have named Marty Krauss PhD '81 as interim dean of the Heller School for Social Policy and Management. They also announced that Brandeis will conduct a national search to identify candidates for the dean position, which became open when Lynch was named provost.

“Marty truly embodies Heller and its mission,” said Lynch. “She is a wonderful scholar, is committed to service to the community and the well-being of others, and is dedicated to the education of our future leaders and educators in the field of social policy. We are extremely grateful that she agreed to lead Heller during the search for the new dean.”

A professor emerita at Heller, Krauss is a renowned expert in intellectual disabilities, with a focus on the impact on families, social services, and public policy of having a family member with intellectual disabilities.  She is a past director of the Starr Center for Mental Retardation and served as associate dean for faculty and academic programs at the Heller School. From 2003-11, she was the provost and senior vice president for academic affairs for Brandeis.

“I am thrilled and honored to be rejoining the Heller school as its interim dean,” said Krauss. “I have always loved the Heller community of scholars and students, and am deeply committed to its research, educational and public engagement focus. I can't wait to come back to work!”

Krauss joined the Heller faculty in 1984 and has spent her entire academic career at Brandeis. In addition to her faculty appointment, she is a member of the Heller Board of Overseers. Her contributions to Heller were recently recognized when Krauss was awarded the Heller alumni service award at Heller’s 55th anniversary celebration this past September.

Since its founding in 1959, the Heller School has driven positive social change through research, education, and public engagement that inform policies and programs designed to address disparities in well-being and promote social inclusion in a sustainable way. Today, Heller is recognized as a top ten graduate school of social policy in the U.S. It offers six graduate degree programs and is home to a collection of centers and institutes that apply social, economic, and political science to solve pressing domestic and global problems.