Meet Tasha Dejan, Ph.D.

Biography

Faculty Member Since 2004

Office of Research, Innovation, and Collaboration (ORIC)

Tasha R. Dejan, Ph.D., currently is the vice provost for research at Spelman College, a liberal arts, Historically Black College for women of African descent. In this role, she serves as the chief advocate for research at the College and leads the Office of Research, Innovation, and Collaboration (ORIC). Dr. Dejan (formerly Inniss) provides leadership and strategic direction for all activities related to individual or interdisciplinary research, creative pursuits, collaborative partnerships and programmatic initiatives for undergraduate research. With the vision to “Empower the Spelman community to achieve and share scholarly excellence,” ORIC has three units that support the Spelman College Community: Evaluation, Monitoring and Data; Research Development and Sponsored Programs; Undergraduate Research and Training Programs; and AUC-GRANTED. Dr. Dejan also holds a tenured faculty appointment in the Department of Mathematics.

Prior to returning to Spelman, she was the inaugural director of education and industry outreach at INFORMS, the world’s largest professional society for professionals in the fields of operations research, management science and analytics. As a senior leadership team member at INFORMS, she was responsible for the overall vision and implementation of all education-related and practice (industry) activities and outreach. Dr. Dejan also did a rotation at the National Science Foundation in the Directorate of Education and Human Resources, where she served as the acting deputy division director of the Division of Human Resource Development and before that, as the co-lead of the Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP) Program.

Originally from New Orleans, Dr. Dejan graduated summa cum laude from Xavier University of Louisiana with a bachelor of science degree in mathematics. She earned a master of science degree in applied mathematics from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a doctorate in applied mathematics from the University of Maryland, College Park. She was one of the first three African American women to earn a doctoral degree in the mathematical sciences from the University of Maryland. Her first faculty position after completing her doctorate was as a Clare Boothe Luce Professor of Mathematics at Trinity College (now Trinity Washington University) in Washington, D.C. She began as a mathematics faculty member at Spelman College in January 2004.

As an applied mathematician, her research interests are in the areas of operations research, applied statistics and data science/data mining. In addition to Dr. Dejan's research interests, she also has a passion for teaching mathematics and encouraging undergraduate students to pursue degrees in STEM disciplines. When she was a junior faculty member at Spelman College, Inniss received a Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching because of her innovative teaching techniques and dedication to helping students to see how mathematics is applied in the real-world.

Currently, Dr. Dejan serves as the principal investigator of Spelman’s Center of Excellence for Minority Women in STEM. She is also a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s Board on Higher Education and Workforce.

Education

• Ph.D., University of Maryland, College Park
• M.S., Georgia Institute of Technology
• B.S., Xavier University of Louisiana