Philosophy professor named new dean of the graduate school

Professor Sarah-Jane Leslie GS '07 has been named the University’s new Dean of the Graduate School.

The Class of 1943 Professor of Philosophy and alum of the graduate college herself, Leslie was appointed by President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 and the Board of Trustees at their Nov. 17 meeting. A search committee composed of faculty members and graduate students proposed her selection.

Leslie received her undergraduate degree in philosophy, mathematics, and cognitive science at Rutgers before coming to the University’s graduate program. She earned her Ph.D. in 2007 at the University, where she had begun teaching a year earlier. She was promoted to full professor in 2013 before being named to the endowed professorship in 2014.

Leslie later became a vice dean for faculty development. She is the founding director of the Program in Cognitive Science and director of the Program in Linguistics. In addition to these two programs, she is an affiliated faculty member with the Department of Psychology, the Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies, the University Center for Human Values, and the Kahneman-Treisman Center for Behavioral Science and Public Policy.

Leslie has also been involved in residential college life. She was a faculty fellow at Rockefeller College, and is currently a faculty fellow at Butler College.

In her academic work, Leslie has furthered her advocacy for both diversity and gender equality while focusing on the intersections of language, philosophy, and psychology. She is the author or co-author of some 40 articles, and her books “Current Controversies in the Philosophy of Science” and “Generics and Generalization” are under contract to be published.

Leslie received the Stanton Award from the Society for Philosophy and Psychology in 2015. She was a Behrman Faculty Fellow at Princeton and a 250th Anniversary Fellow at Rutgers University.