Meet the Dean’s Office Staff
Pratima Prasad, Dean
A teacher-scholar and an academic administrator, Pratima Prasad joined the university in 2002 as a faculty member in the Modern Languages, Literatures, and Cultures (MLLC) Department. In this capacity, she taught a wide range of French courses, from introductory offerings to advanced electives in her area of expertise, nineteenth-century French literature and culture. Pratima guided the MLLC Department as Chairperson from 2011 to 2013, and was Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts (CLA) for several years. She served as Interim Dean before being appointed permanent Dean of the college in June 2025.
Pratima has served in many leadership roles over the course of her career at UMass Boston. She chaired the Pre-Law Committee (a collaboration between CLA and the Office of Career Services and Internships), directed CLA’s Undergraduate Research Portfolio, co-chaired the Junior Faculty Mentoring Taskforce, and sat on the Provost’s Academic Policy Group. She has brought her passion for student success and faculty development to each of these roles. Her noteworthy service record earned her the UMass Boston Chancellor’s Award for Distinguished Service in 2022. Pratima is also very active in her discipline. Currently, Pratima is the Vice President of the George Sand Association, and sits on the Advisory Board of the Nineteenth-Century French Studies journal. She participated for a number of years on the Executive Board of the Eastern Massachusetts Chapter of the American Association of Teachers of French. She sees her Deanship as an extension of her service to the university and to the broader profession. As a strategic advocate for the liberal arts, she continues to be committed to initiatives that are aimed at supporting faculty in the Humanities, the Social Sciences, the Arts, and at enriching the academic experience of liberal arts students on our campus.
As a faculty member, Pratima is involved with curricular programming and teaching within her home department of MLLC. A critical literary scholar, Pratima is a specialist of colonialism, Romanticism, and the history of European slavery in the nineteenth-century. She is currently finishing up a book that studies how nineteenth-century francophone literary texts engaged with slavery in the colonial Indian Ocean. Dr. Pratima Prasad's Scholarly Profile
Jennifer Gregg, Associate Dean (On Sabbatical, Fall 2025)
Jennifer Gregg joined the faculty at UMass Boston in January 2015as chair for the Communication Department. She served as department chair in Communication until joining the dean’s office staff as interim associate dean for 2022-23. She has served in a number of other important roles on campus, including twice as an elected member of the Faculty Council, the Academic Programs Committee of the university’s Strategic Planning Taskforce, and most recently as a member of the General Education Taskforce. Jennifer earned her PhD at Michigan State University, with specific emphasis on telecommunications. Her research focuses on the effects of technology, particularly in disadvantaged populations, and the use of technology in health care. She teaches courses in research methods, science communication, communication and technology, and media effects. She has served in a variety of professional service roles, including as a reviewer for multiple scientific journals, a grant reviewer for U.S. scientific agencies, and as a member of the Public Interest Communications national working group. As Associate Dean, Jennifer serves as the Dean’s Office liaison for graduate programs and research, interacting directly with Graduate Program Directors on programmatic administration, and with Department Chairs on research and funding issues. She oversees the course scheduling process, contributes to personnel reviews, works with departments to assign large-enrollment course TAs, addresses student academic concerns, and contributes to budget planning. Jennifer serves as the Dean’s Office liaison to departmental administrators. Dr. Jennifer Gregg's Scholarly Profile
Rafael Jaen, Associate Dean
Adugna Lemi, Associate Dean and Director of the McCormack Graduate School
Professor Lemi joined the UMass Boston faculty in 2004. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 2010 and to the rank of Professor in 2023. During his seven-year tenure as the Chair of the Economics Department (2015-2022), he oversaw the strategy and operations of both the undergraduate and graduate programs of the department. In addition to his leadership as chair, Professor Lemi has worked with stakeholders across the university and maintained a strong commitment to service at all levels. Within CLA, he has collaborated closely with the CLA Dean’s office on mission-critical initiatives, and he has been intimately involved in the McCormack Graduate School (MGS) for Policy and Global Studies programs and student supervision. Currently, he serves as an Associate Dean in the College of Liberal Arts.
Professor Lemi has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in Economic Development, International Trade, Applied Microeconomics, Multinational Corporations, the Political Economy of Development in Africa, and International Political Economy. His research interests focus on economic development in Africa, capital flow and its determinants in developing countries, multinational corporations and their role in developing countries, and issues of trade and poverty in Ethiopia. Professor Lemi’s scholarship has been published in journals such as World Economy, Empirical Economics, Transnational Corporations, Agricultural Economics, International Trade Journal, African Finance Journal, Journal of Economic Development, and International Journal of Education Economics and Development, among others. Currently, he is writing a book entitled “The Trade, Productivity and Poverty Nexus in Africa: Policy Implications and Recommendations.”
Prior to joining UMass Boston, Professor Lemi was a visiting assistant professor at Winona State University during AY2003/04. Between 2007 and 2014, Professor Lemi has served a visiting professor/consultant at Addis Ababa University (AAU), Ethiopia, and the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) in Nairobi, Kenya, during the summer months. At AAU, Professor Lemi has taught a course in “Trade Policy and Trade Data Analysis,” mostly for government employees, to help build the capacity of the country in trade negotiations. Since 2011, Professor Lemi has served as a visiting lecturer/consultant at the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) in Nairobi, Kenya, where he worked with Ph.D. students from several African Universities on their Ph.D. thesis proposals and offered a seminar course on International Trade topics.
Eve Sorum joined the faculty in the Department of English at UMass Boston in 2006, where she designed and taught courses on modernist studies and early 20th century Anglophone poetry and prose. She spent one year as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso (2013-14), and she has published a monograph, Modernist Empathy: Geography, Elegy, and the Uncanny (Cambridge University Press, 2019), as well as many articles and chapters on writers ranging from Virginia Woolf to T.S. Eliot to Zora Neale Hurston, and on topics including empathy, nostalgia, elegy, silence, modernist mapping, masochism, and the literature of World War I. She is currently working on a project exploring feminist pedagogies of “unmastery” in modernist women’s writing.
Eve has served in a number of service and leadership roles at UMass Boston, including as Chair of the English Department from Fall 2020 through Summer 2025, and as Treasurer for the Department Chair Union since 2023. As Chair, her primary focus during her first years was leading the Department through its return to campus after the remote year of teaching and rebuilding community for both faculty and students. She ushered a third of the tenure-stream faculty in the Department through promotion to full Professor; oversaw and wrote reports for 43 promotion and review cases; administered the revision of the English major capstone and the implementation of Nantucket Field Station mini-courses; created new department spaces for English majors and minors; and managed the transition to the new contract for over 45 continuing appointment non-tenure track faculty. During this time, she also chaired the CLA Taskforce that created guidelines for Senior Lecturer II and III CLRs, was a member of the Strategic Planning Academic Programs Committee and chair of the sub-committee on evaluating existing programs.
Prior to her tenure as Chair, Eve served in the English Department in almost all major leadership positions—as Vice Chair, Undergraduate Program Director, and Graduate Program Director—as well as chaired other major committees. During these years she was a member of Faculty Council for two terms, as well as an interim member of the Faculty Council Executive Committee. In Spring 2020 she joined the Academic Continuity Task Force and served on the subcommittee that created the Restorative Justice Initiative. Eve has been committed to supporting students across the University, and in August 2020 co-founded the Educator’s Solidarity Fund, which raised enough money to fund 18 undergraduate and graduate students to work as Academic Success Mentors in remote large enrollment classes and with the Sankofa Conversation Series on Structural Racism. She has served on the University Fellowships Committee, the Financial Aid, Admissions, and Records Committee, the University Merit Scholarships Selection Committee, and the CLA Graduate Workload Taskforce, among other service roles. In the field of modernist studies, she has focused on mentorship of junior scholars in her field, been active as a referee for journals and academic presses, and has served as the co-chair of the local organizing committee for the Modernist Studies Association 2025 Conference in Boston.
Margaret Hart, Interim Associate Dean
Margaret Hart joined the faculty at UMass Boston in August of 1997 as an Assistant Professor ofArt Department. She was promoted to Associate Professor in 2013 and to the rank of Professor
in 2021. She served as department chair in the Art Department for 7 years and joins the dean’s
office staff as interim associate dean for the fall semester of 2025. She has recently served on
the College Personnel Committee and as an elected member of the Faculty Council. In her
department she also served on the Executive Committee and several Personnel Committees
across the College. Margaret teaches courses in studio art, primarily the introductory film and
digital photography courses and then the more advanced workshop courses. She has recently
organized a conference in alignment with the UMB mission, the Thinking About Climate Change:
Art, Science, and Imagination in the 21st Century conference which occurred in October of
2024. The conference was a collaboration between the arts, humanities, and sciences to
develop an interdisciplinary understanding of climate change and find ways to address the
challenges. This event highlighted UMB faculty research, as well as that of invited outside
participants. As Interim Associate Dean, Margaret serves as the Dean’s Office liaison with
Department Chairs on research and funding issues, focusing on faculty success. She oversees
the course scheduling process, contributes to personnel reviews, works with departments to
assign large-enrollment courses, addresses student academic concerns, and contributes to
budget planning. Margaret earned her PhD at Plymouth University as part of the Transart
Institue and her MFA from the University of Colorado Boulder, both in the fine arts and
photography. Her research focuses on the Posthuman era and larger critical issues involving cli-
mate, gender, technology and personal narrative. Her mixed media, video and installation
artworks employ a wide variety of materials and are exhibited both nationally and
internationally. She most recently participated in a group exhibition in Seoul, Korea, at the
Workbyseoul0.05 Gallery and shows regularly at the Kingston Gallery in Boston.
Kim Ho, Assistant Dean
Kim joined the UMass Boston staff in 2005 as the accountant and grant administrator for the Institute of Community Inclusion. Kim also served as the Business Manager for the College of Liberal Arts before assuming her current position as the college’s Assistant Dean for Finance. She is responsible for the oversight and management of the unit budget, the management of fiscal functions related to budgeting, as well as needs assessment, allocation and analysis of resource use for the college.
Fiona O'Connor, Assistant Dean
Fiona joined the Dean’s office in 2017, and is an alumna of the College of Liberal Arts. Prior to her CLA Dean’s office role, she was the Business Services Coordinator for Academic Support Services and Undergraduate Studies. In the Dean’s office, Fiona is responsible for assisting the Dean and Associate Deans with personnel and hiring procedures for staff, tenure-track, tenured and non-tenure track faculty. She serves as the Dean’s office liaison to the Provost’s office and Human Resources for paperwork related to hiring and personnel. She is available to advise departments on personnel and hiring issues pertaining to faculty, as well as professional and classified staff.
Diann Simmons, Assistant Dean
Diann’s journey at UMass Boston began in the Gerontology Department, from which she moved on to Institutional Research as a Research Analyst. Since then, Diann has earned a PhD within the College of Education and Human Development. Diann is currently putting this broad knowledge of the university to work as the Assistant Dean responsible for course scheduling as well as the Office Manager. Her primary role is maintaining the efficiency and effectiveness of the college. Responsibilities include gathering, tracking, interpreting, reporting, and forecasting college data pertaining to enrollment, retention, graduation, research, faculty workload, as well as financial planning, hiring forecast and budgeting process. This role includes gathering and interpreting college-wide data to support both institutional planning and strategic academic planning.
Eddie Sze, Business Manager
Eddie Sze joined the UMass Boston staff in 2009 as an accountant for the Institute for Community Inclusion, by way of State Street Bank’s Mutual Fund Department. Originally from Hong Kong, Eddie is a UMass Boston graduate and currently serves as the Business Manager for the Dean’s Office, College of Liberal Arts. Eddie is the contact for reimbursements and purchasing in the college.
Ana Frega, Director of CLA Advising
As the Director of CLA Advising Ana works to ensure that all declared majors in the College of Liberal Arts benefit from professional academic advisors, as well as faculty advisors and mentors. Ana is a member of the National Academic Advising Association. She serves on their regional steering and conference planning committees and has also been recognized as an “Emerging Leader” by NACADA. Ana is happy to help connect students to advisors, as well as field questions about advising.
Elena Simaku, Executive Assistant to the Dean
As the Dean’s Executive Assistant, Elena serves as the direct primary contact, liaison and source of information of the Dean’s and Dean’s Office policy and procedures to the Department Chairs, CLA Faculty and Students, Chancellor's Office, Academic Affairs, Administration and Finance, Human Resources, the Provost’s Office, the University President's Office as well as to external collaborators of CLA. She provides support and works closely with the Associate Deans and the Assistant Deans and serves as college liaison for CLA Senate. Under the direction of the Dean, Elena performs complex, varied and confidential administrative functions supporting the College’s strategic priorities and provides advanced executive administrative support to the Dean and Dean’s Office regarding communication, correspondence, scheduling and agenda managing, general office procedures and projects related to the work of CLA.
Elena joined the CLA Dean’s office team in December 2022. Prior to that, she was an International Relations Officer for the Sector of International Relations, Research and Projects of Fan S. Noli University (Albania). She has a Bachelor’s in English Language and Philology and a Master’s in English Language Teaching with a Minor in Arts.
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Rachel Puopolo, Director of CLA First!
In her role as Director of CLA First! and Early Support, Rachel oversees the learning communities within the College of Liberal Arts: CLA First! and CLA SophoMORE. In addition, she is delighted to work on initiatives and programming for all new students in the College of Liberal Arts, including welcoming students to CLA on their very first day at orientation. Rachel has worked at the University since 2005 and earned her MEd in School Counseling at the University. She first joined the College of Liberal Arts in 2011 as an Academic Advisor.
Rachel was nominated for and received the 2023 Provost's Award for Excellence in Advising and Mentoring.
Kathleen Juliano, Personnel and Operations Administrator
Kathleen joined the Dean’s Office in 2024. She previously held positions at UMass Boston as a financial aid counselor and application processing specialist in the division of Enrollment Management. At the Dean’s Office, Kathleen assists in handling personnel matters from hiring student workers to creating faculty contracts.
Alexander Rae, Budget and Operations Manager, McCormack Graduate School
Alex joined the Dean’s Office in December 2024 as the Budget and Operations Manager for the McCormack Graduate School. A UMass Amherst graduate, Alex is responsible for overseeing financial planning, budgeting, and day-to-day operational functions to ensure efficiency and fiscal responsibility across MGS. Alex is the contact person for MGS reimbursements, purchases, and budget-related inquiries.