Shannon Hader, MD, MPH, former Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and Deputy Executive Director of Programmes at the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), and a prominent leader in the fight against HIV/AIDS in the United States and globally, has been named the dean of the School of International Service at American University. Dr. Hader succeeds Christine BN Chin, PhD, who has served as dean of SIS since August 2017 and is returning to the faculty. Dr. Hader will begin her new position on July 1.

“I'm honored to be joining SIS—with its long tradition of driving truly interdisciplinary solutions to complex world problems,” said Hader. “I want to be sure the unique commitment of SIS alumni, students, faculty, and staff to impacting the lives of people and communities—that scholarship drives service and service experiences in turn drive new scholarship—is celebrated.”

Before accepting the position at the UN, Dr. Hader served as Director of the Division of Global HIV and TB at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She also has served as Vice President and Director at Futures Group International (now Palladium); as Senior Deputy Director of the HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis, STD, and TB Administration at the District of Columbia Department of Health; Senior Scientific Advisor to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief at the US Department of State.

Dr. Hader’s scholarly work spans several of AU’s areas of strategic focus, including health, data science, and social equity. Her experience and expertise will support AU’s outstanding faculty as SIS continues to excel at research and scholarship and educating the next generation of leaders. She is the author of numerous peer-reviewed articles, white papers, and reports, and has served as a Katherine Haughton Hepburn Visiting Fellow at Bryn Mawr College and as an adjunct clinical professor at the Emory University School of Medicine. She has been selected as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Fellow, was a member of Leadership Greater Washington’s class of 2015, and received the Whitman-Walker Clinic (now Whitman-Walker Health) Community Service Award.

“We look forward to welcoming Dr. Shannon Hader to the American University community as dean of the School of International Service,” said Provost Peter Starr. “She brings to the role extensive leadership and management experience, a track record of success in building strategic partnerships, and a commitment to multidisciplinary scholarship. I am excited to collaborate with her in supporting the work of SIS faculty, staff, and students in the years to come.”

Founded in 1957, in answer to President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s call to prepare students of international affairs to “wage peace,” SIS has been consistently ranked a top-10 school of international affairs at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Its students and scholars work at the intersection of global challenges that include public health, climate change, poverty, food insecurity, nuclear proliferation, and threats to democratic governance, making this a pivotal and exciting time for Dr. Hader to take the school’s helm.

“Dr. Hader’s years of experience in international public service and her impressive record of policy-relevant scholarship make her an ideal leader for SIS,” said search committee chair and SIS professor Patrick Thaddeus Jackson. “Her selection as dean underscores a broad understanding of international affairs, and I personally am excited to work with her as we envision the future of international studies as a way of ‘waging peace’ in a changing world.”