Alan Mathios, senior associate dean for academic affairs and undergraduate education and professor of policy analysis and management in Cornell's College of Human Ecology, will serve as interim dean of the college, effective July l, when the current dean, Lisa Staiano-Coico, assumes the position of provost of Temple University.

Mathios, who has been serving as an associate dean since 2004 and has been at Cornell since 1992, is the former associate chair and director of undergraduate studies for the Department of Policy Analysis and Management.

A faculty committee will be convened shortly to begin the search for a new dean.

Said Cornell Provost Biddy Martin: "As the senior associate dean for academic affairs and undergraduate education for the College of Human Ecology and a distinguished member of Cornell's faculty, Alan has considerable experience with the issues at the college and an appreciation for the broad themes at the university level. He is thus well suited to lead the college in the interim as a search for the new dean gets under way. I am delighted with his appointment."

"I am proud and honored to assume this role at Human Ecology," said Mathios. "Our faculty, our students, our alumni and our extension professionals together foster an incredible atmosphere for research, scholarship and outreach. Dean Lisa has been a tremendous leader in that endeavor, and I look forward to helping carry on the momentum that she and many others have generated."

Mathios is co-editor of the Journal of Consumer Policy and serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Consumer Affairs and the Journal of Public Policy and Marketing. He is also the project leader on the program Consumers, Pharmaceutical Policy and Health, funded by the Merck Company Foundation. He came to Cornell following six years at the Federal Trade Commission, where he served as a senior staff economist in the Division of Economic Policy Analysis and as an econometrics consultant to the Bureau of Economics.

A major focus of his research is the effect of Food and Drug Administration regulatory policies on consumer and firm behavior. He also researches government tax and advertising policies and their impact on smoking onset and cessation. He has been the recipient of a number of teaching and advising awards, including the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching and Cornell's Kendall S. Carpenter Advising Award.

Mathios received a B.A. in economics and psychology (1980) at the Sate University of New York at Buffalo and his Ph.D. in economics (1985) from the University of Pennsylvania.