Jana L. Jasinski has been named the new vice provost for Faculty Excellence. She officially starts in her new role on June 29. Jasinski has served as interim vice provost for Faculty Excellence since July 2017.

As interim, she has led faculty recruitment, retention, development and diversity efforts, as well as other initiatives and programs to support and strengthen all faculty.

As vice provost for Faculty Excellence, Jasinski will further enhance these efforts and foster a culture that includes interdisciplinary collaboration, faculty recognition, philanthropy and leadership development, while simultaneously advancing the Collective Impact Strategic Plan and the university’s mission of discovery, learning and engagement.

“As interim vice provost, Jana has shown her dedication to supporting and providing opportunities for the enrichment of all faculty,” said Interim Provost Elizabeth A. Dooley. “I look forward to seeing the advancements under her leadership to further our development and retention efforts, and to better position us to achieve preeminence.”

“I believe that our faculty are one of the main reasons UCF is so great,” Jasinski said. “I’m excited and proud to be leading the team responsible for providing them with opportunities to do their personal best here.”

Jasinski joined UCF faculty in 1999 as an assistant professor of Sociology and has since served in multiple faculty and administrative roles, including chair of the Department of Sociology, associate dean in the College of Graduate Studies and associate dean in the College of Sciences. She has also received multiple awards and honors for her teaching, research and service, including being named Pegasus Professor of Sociology.

Her research interests focus primarily on the areas of lethal and non-lethal interpersonal violence with an emphasis on intimate partner violence, substance abuse and institutional responses to violence. She has received several grants from the National Institute of Justice, the most recent of which resulted in the co-authored research monograph “Hard Lives, Mean Streets: The Experience of Violence in the Lives of Homeless Women.”

As co-lead of the Violence Against Women faculty research cluster, she works with an interdisciplinary team to investigate how to better understand the complexity of violence against women and provide insight into preventing it.

Jasinski holds a bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate in Sociology from the University of New Hampshire.