Today’s Org Chart column contains recent appointments and some you may have missed over the past several weeks, including new directors and an associate dean.

Dateline UC Davis welcomes news of appointments of various kinds for faculty and staff, for publication in Org Chart (formerly titled Transitions). Send information to dateline@ucdavis.edu.

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Associate dean in Letters and Science

Kathryn Olmsted, professor of history, has been named associate dean of the faculty in the social sciences in the College of Letters and Science.

“We are proud to welcome Professor Olmsted to our executive leadership team,” said Estella Atekwana, dean of the College of Letters and Science. “She has long been a leader who has exemplified our values and excellence for her entire career at UC Davis. She will help us to achieve our high ambitions for our faculty and our students.”

Read more on the college’s website.

—  Alex Russell

Center for Regional Change director

Ahna Ballonoff Suleiman has been selected as the new executive director of the UC Davis Center for Regional Change, a hub for innovative, collaborative and action-oriented research.

Suleiman, who started Nov. 15, was most recently an independent consultant focused on adolescent development and youth engagement. Among her clients included Hopelab, a nonprofit organization based in San Francisco, where she advised on ways to engage youth in developing technology solutions to improve the mental health and well-being of young people.

She previously spent two years as an assistant professor with the Department of Public Health at California State University, Sacramento, and taught courses in public health and youth development at UC Davis and UC Berkeley.

Read more on the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences website.

— Tiffany Dobbyn

Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute interim director

Jay Stachowicz, a professor in the Department of Evolution and Ecology, has been named the interim director of the Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute. Stachowicz succeeds the institute’s founding director, Rick Grosberg, a distinguished professor emeritus of evolution and ecology who retired from the university earlier this year.

Longtime colleagues, Stachowicz, who studies the biodiversity and resilience of coastal ecosystems, and Grosberg, a leading researcher on the ways marine invertebrates recognize and interact with one another, share a common passion for fostering community and collaboration in marine sciences.

Read more on the College of Biological Sciences website.

— Evan White

Global Affairs chief of staff

Andrea Gaytan is the new chief of staff in UC Davis Global Affairs. In her new role, Gaytan is a member of the Global Affairs senior leadership team and is responsible for leading and coordinating cross-cutting organizational initiatives, ensuring sound resource allocation and supporting key initiatives and campus HR and administrative operations. She will serve as the chief HR officer and provide broad oversight of the administration of Global Affairs, its units and programs through supervision of finance, business operations, communications, event management, travel security and contracts and grants.

Read more on the Global Affairs website.

— Ali S Loge