Lisa Rosen-Metsch ’90GS, an internationally recognized AIDS researcher who most recently chaired the Mailman School of Public Health’s Department of Sociomedical Sciences, has been named dean of the School of General Studies.
She succeeds Peter Awn, who led the School of General Studies for more than twenty years and continues to teach in the religion department.
A Brooklyn native raised by two New York City public-school teachers, Rosen-Metsch is an expert in the treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS among populations with substance-abuse disorders. Before joining the Mailman School of Public Health in 2012, she was a professor at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine.
Rosen-Metsch is herself an alumna of the School of General Studies, which is the University’s liberal-arts school for nontraditional undergraduates — those who have taken an academic break before attending college or who are pursuing dual degrees. In 1990, Rosen-Metsch earned dual bachelor’s degrees through a joint program between Columbia and the Jewish Theological Seminary.
Rosen-Metsch says that her interest in AIDS prevention arose from her experience at the School of General Studies, where she interned alongside Columbia AIDS researchers. “My years as a General Studies student were transformative and extraordinary,” she said. “The potential to help navigate Columbia’s future by returning to the school that gave me so much is humbling, exciting, and inspiring.”
