Chapman Professor Jason Keller has been named the university’s vice provost for graduate education.
Keller has served as program director of the interdisciplinary Environmental Science & Policy program for more than a decade at Schmid College of Science and Technology, and was the college’s interim dean in 2019 and 2020. He also co-chaired Schmid’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Task Force.
“As the new vice provost of graduate education, I am honored to join the staff, faculty and administrators working to support the exceptional students and alumni of Chapman University’s graduate and professional programs,” Keller says. “I look forward to meeting the members of the graduate communities on both the Orange and Rinker campuses and learning more about the outstanding work that is happening at Chapman.”
Keller got his Ph.D. in biological sciences from the University of Notre Dame and was a post-doctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. He joined Chapman in 2008, becoming an associate and then full professor.
Keller has earned Chapman’s Faculty Excellence Award for Teaching, the Valerie Scudder Award for Outstanding Achievement in Teaching, Scholarly/Creative Activity and Service to the University twice, the Wang-Fradkin Professorship and Assistant Professorship, and the Award in Mentorship of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity. As interim dean, he advocated to ensure that graduate students had what they needed to succeed.
He has published more than 50 articles on the flow of carbon and nutrients through various ecosystems, and has garnered more than $6.3 million in research funding from the National Science Foundation and other entities. He has served on committees for major national associations like the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency, and he frequently reviews manuscript submissions to major journals in his field.
