Robin Garrell knows graduate students.
The professor of chemistry works closely with graduate students in her research lab and via a pre-professional training program she helped to develop on campus.
That role will soon expand on a grander scale. Garrell will be taking office as vice provost for graduate education and dean of the graduate division on July 1.
Her responsibilities will include overseeing operations such as the distribution of some financial fellowships and enforcing Academic Senate regulations, said Michael Goldstein, current interim vice provost for graduate education and dean of the graduate division.
Garrell said she accepted her nomination to the dean position out of a desire to better support the students she has come to know on a personal level.
Concerned by a lack of finances for the students, she plans to pursue grants and work with foundations to bolster graduate student programs.
Earnest concern for graduate students’ well-being is central to Garrell’s personality, faculty and students said.
Garrell’s daily interactions with graduate students in the lab made her an appealing candidate during the appointment process, said Ron Mellor, who chaired the graduate dean search committee and is a professor of history.
Mellor said he is confident Garrell can effectively lobby for graduate students because she works alongside them, understanding their needs on a personal level.
Robyn Hodgkins, a doctoral student in chemistry, echoed Mellor’s sentiments, citing her mentor’s constant kindness as her most noticeable trait.
“It’s a one-on-one interaction,” she said of researching with Garrell. “When she’s talking to you, it’s not a teacher telling you what to do. She’s a peer.”
Other students praised Garrell for treating her graduate lab team like professional scientists, not a group of students.
“Lots of professors force their research on students,” said Andy Aijian, a doctoral student in biomedical engineering who works in Garrell’s lab.
“But Robin gives us the freedom to do our own thing, even though she’s always there to keep me motivated.”
It is her close relationship with students, Garrell said, that motivates her to fight for the financial assistance her students need.
Through her leadership role in UCLA’s Materials Creation Training Program for science and engineering graduate students, Garrell also connects students with opportunities to conduct cross-departmental research, find internships and attend seminars that foster professional skills like project management.
The program led Hodgkins to an internship at Tate, a renowned British art gallery, where she worked to identify chemical factors in the aging of art pieces.
Hodgkins now researches corrosion agents in Garrell’s lab and will move on to a fellowship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the fall, she said.
“If Robin wasn’t my adviser, I wouldn’t be doing the research I’m doing now, and I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to intern in a non-academic lab,” Hodgkins said. “She’s open to my research, and she’s enthusiastic.”
Given the program’s success Garrell said she would like to see the Materials Creation Training Program’s framework expanded and applied to other departments in the graduate division.
As dean, she hopes to place similar pre-professional programs in non-science departments.
Garrell’s affinity for establishing interdisciplinary relations such as these stems from her term in the Academic Senate, she said.
“I’m now very interested in campus-wide issues and policies that affect student welfare,” said Garrell, who served as president of the Academic Senate during the 2009-2010 school year. “I like thinking about big-picture questions.”
Garrell’s chemistry research also grapples with big-picture concepts: She analyzes adhesion between molecules, and she has developed a “lab on a chip” that allows researchers to test chemical reactions on a uniquely small device.
“My approach to research speaks to how I approach questions,” Garrell said. “I try to understand all perspectives, draw information from a wide range of sources and tackle problems in a creative way.”