Academics

Pamela Schirmeister joined the Graduate School in 1999, and serves as Sr. Associate Dean and Dean of Strategic Initiatives for The Graduate School, and the FAS Dean’s office and as Dean of Undergraduate Education at Yale College. She works on academic and administrative initiatives at the intersection of the College, the Graduate School and the FAS and on undergraduate curricular issues.

Dean Schirmeister’s academic training is in nineteenth-century American literature. Her research interests also include the relation between philosophy and literature, psychoanalytic theory, and biography, and she has published several books and many articles in these areas. She received from Yale both her B.A. (BK) and Ph.D. in English and has taught courses in Yale College in English, Comparative Literature and the Humanities. Before returning to Yale, Schirmeister worked as a reporter for Time magazine and taught at Middlebury, NYU and at University of Konstanz, where she is also a member of the International Advisory Board.

Jasmina Besirevic Regan joined the Graduate School in 2016, and serves as Associate Dean. She is responsible for designing and implementing strategic projects aimed at strengthening and supporting our graduate programs. Working with the Graduate School’s Graduate Program Review team, she also helps to identify areas of growth and opportunity within our graduate programs. She works closely with the academic affairs team and with graduate programs across the divisions to provide review and support at the programmatic level. She advises graduate programs on curricular and structural issues, the development and implementation of school and program policies, student exchanges and international initiatives, and the admissions process for degree-granting programs.

Dean Besirevic’s academic training is in the sociology of genocide. Her teaching and research interests also include ethnic conflict, identity, nationalism, human rights, and refugee resettlement. She received her B.A. in Sociology from Augsburg College in Minneapolis, and her Ph.D. in Sociology from Yale having also earned the Master’s degrees there. She has taught courses in Yale College in Sociology, Global Affairs, and Ethnicity, Race, and Migration. She has presented papers on the sociology of genocide at a number of professional meetings, and has been invited to speak at international conferences both at Yale and abroad. Before joining the Graduate School academic affairs team, she served as the Dean of Trumbull College, one of fourteen residential colleges at Yale, for twelve years.

Ann Gaylin joined the Graduate School in 2017 and serves as Associate Dean for Graduate Education. She leads the academic affairs team and works closely with graduate programs across the divisions to offer guidance and support at the programmatic level. She advises graduate programs on curricular and structural issues, the development and implementation of school and program policies, and the admissions process for degree-granting programs. Dean Gaylin’s academic training is in nineteenth- and twentieth-century English and French literature. Her teaching and research interests explore topics in romantic, Victorian, and modern fiction. She received her B.A. in Comparative Literature from Brandeis University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Princeton University. Prior to joining the Graduate School, Dean Gaylin was a faculty member and DUS in the Department of Comparative Literature at Yale. She has also worked at the American Council of Learned Societies, at Brown University, and most recently at Harvard University, where she served as Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education for Academic Support. At Brown, Dean Gaylin taught in the Comparative Literature Department and collaborated with faculty to produce, revise, and enhance undergraduate academic programs. At Harvard, she provided leadership to align and integrate academic support services and other programs in the College and GSAS.

Richard Sleight joined the Graduate School as an associate dean in September 1996, having served for ten years as a tenured faculty member at the medical school of the University of Cincinnati. His portfolio includes responsibility for the progress of individual students across all divisions and student advising. He has research expertise in lipid biochemistry and the intracellular transport of lipid molecules.

Dean Sleight has served as President of the Northeastern Association of Graduate Schools and as a board member for the Council of Graduate Schools. He received his B.S. in Biology from the University of Southern California and his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Purdue University.

Robert Harper-Mangels has served as assistant dean of the Graduate School since 2006. He earned his B.A. in Music and Psychology at Wesleyan University and a Ph.D. in Neuroscience and Behavior at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Before coming to Yale, he served as Assistant Director of the Northwestern University Institute for Neuroscience.

Michael West joined the FAS Dean’s Office in 2019 and serves as Project Specialist, working on a range of tasks that span the FAS and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS). In the FAS Dean’s Office, he oversees the Scholars as Leaders; Scholars as Learners (SAL2) initiative. He also works on communications, including the FAS website, and coordinates various programming throughout the year. In the GSAS he supports the academic affairs team on reviewing resources and services and coordinating special projects.

Michael completed a B.A. in English and Politics at the University of Dallas, an M.A. in English at the University of Houston, and a Ph.D. in English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. His scholarly research focuses on early modern literature, especially the theater of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Prior to his current role, he taught English and writing at Columbia and at Sacred Heart University and worked in the Yale College Dean’s Office, where he provided administrative support for a number of academic programs.