Christine Lovely, vice president and chief human resources officer, is leaving Cornell to become the inaugural vice chancellor for campus human resources and chief people officer at the University of California, Los Angeles. Lovely’s last day at Cornell will be Dec. 15.

Sean Moeller, associate vice president for human resources, will take over as interim vice president and chief human resources officer.

A California native, Lovely came to Cornell in 2022 from the University of California, Davis, her law school alma mater, where she was associate vice chancellor and chief human resources officer. She has worked in higher-education human resources for 15 years.

“I want to thank Christine for her dedicated service to Cornell over these last three years,” President Michael I. Kotlikoff said. “She helped guide our human resources through rapid transformation following the COVID-19 pandemic, and a challenging period for higher education, and I appreciate her tireless efforts. We wish her the very best in her career.”

Lovely, who begins her new role Dec. 18, said she is leaving Cornell with mixed emotions.

“I truly love Ithaca, I love Cornell, and my time here has been really good to me,” she said. “It’s helped me grow in many different ways, and I have an amazing team of HR professionals that I work with that I will miss greatly.

“But personal and family considerations play a huge part in this,” she said, “and that’s what is taking me back to California. It’s a matter of prioritizing my family over anything else.”

Lovely said she’s proud of the HR community’s efforts in the area of human resources optimization, including the new Careers Hub, which offers an easier-to-use and more personalized way for staff to explore career opportunities across the university.

She also said she’s proud of recent initiatives such as CoworkerCoffee and WAGs (Workforce Affinity Groups), which help employees connect with one another.

“It’s about recognizing the need for our employees to have community,” she said, “and supporting those things that would allow for connection among our employees, and for them to find their place.”

Lovely, a lawyer-turned-human-resources executive, started in higher ed in 2010 at California State University, Sacramento, where she was university counsel and then vice president of human resources. She was hired at UC Davis in 2018.

A native of San Jose, California, she received her bachelor’s in mass communication from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1991, and a J.D. from the UC Davis School of Law in 1996.

 Moeller earned his bachelor’s in labor and industrial relations, and his master’s in human resources and employee relations, both from Pennsylvania State University. He spent nearly 16 years (2002-18) at his alma mater, including as a human resources strategic partner in the College of the Liberal Arts, before joining Cornell in October 2018.

Moeller worked in human resources at the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business until April of this year, when he became associate vice president for academic human resources. He was recently named associate vice president for human resources.