Bacon's new role builds on leadership
<p>Professor Sid Bacon is an auditory psychophysicist – a hearing scientist – and the new dean of the Division of Natural Sciences and Mathematics in ASU's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.</p><separator></separator><p>His appointment as dean of the college's largest division is the latest leadership role held by Bacon since coming to ASU in 1988 as an associate professor in the Department of Speech and Hearing Science. Bacon served as director of the interdisciplinary doctoral program in the department, and later as acting chair and then chair. This past December, he was tapped to serve as interim dean of the Division of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, a position recently made permanent.</p><separator></separator><p>“Sid has a quiet way of pulling together people to identify and accomplish goals. Under his leadership as chair of the Department of Speech and Hearing Science, research expenditures more than doubled in the past two years,” says Quentin Wheeler, ASU vice president and dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.</p><separator></separator><p>As chair, Bacon headed a department of 12 tenured and tenure-track faculty who oversaw $3.4 million in research expenditures. He also coordinated and taught an undergraduate research seminar in the Department of Speech and Hearing Science – something he will continue to do. This program identifies and nurtures talented juniors with the goal of maintaining a pipeline of researchers and teaching faculty in the field, Bacon says.</p><separator></separator><p>In his new role as dean of the Division of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, Bacon will manage nine academic units, including the School of Earth and Space Exploration, the School of Life Sciences, the School of Materials, and the departments of chemistry and biochemistry, kinesiology, mathematics and statistics, physics, psychology, and speech and hearing science.</p>