Posted 08/21/2007

Tom Chandler named interim dean of Arnold School of Public Health 

Dr. Tom Chandler, chair of the Department of Environmental Health Sciences, has been named interim dean of the Arnold School of Public Health. 

Chandler, who has been ENHS chair for nine years, will serve as dean while a national search is launched for a replacement for Dr. Donna Richter who is leaving her position as dean at the end of August to become executive director of the South Carolina Public Health Institute. 

The interim appointment was announced Monday by Dr. Harris Pastides, USC vice president for research and health sciences. 

“The university is fortunate that Donna will continue her work on campus and retain her faculty position in the Department of Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior,” Pastides wrote in an email to Arnold Faculty and Staff. 

“Tom is an extremely well qualified administrator for the interim position,” Pastides said, adding Chandler also is a nationally recognized researcher in the effects of endocrine disrupting chemicals and the effects of nano materials in the environment. 

Chandler is a member of the Delta Omega Public Health Honor Society and was the 1997 recipient of the Arnold School of Public Health Research Award for outstanding research accomplishments.  In 1998, he received the USC Educational Foundation Research Award in Health Sciences.  

In addition to his accomplishments on campus, he is one of three U.S. delegates to the environmental directorate (toxicity testing division) of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris -- a global environmental protection coordinating agency for the developed and developing world.

Chandler is actively involved in developing and validating internationally standardized test methods for the OECD for evaluating risks of reproductively toxic chemicals in aquatic systems.  He holds major competitive funding from the USEPA, the NSF and NOAA.   

Chandler grew up in Hamlet, N.C., studied marine sciences at UNC-Wilmington, earned his master's and doctoral degrees from Louisiana State University in 1986, and joined the USC faculty in 1988 as a postdoctoral fellow at the Belle W. Baruch Institute.  In 1992 he moved to the Department of Environmental Health Sciences.   

Pastides advised the faculty and staff of the Arnold School that additional information would be released in the coming weeks regarding the organization of a national search for the next dean of the Arnold School. 

Pastides added, “Please join me in congratulating Donna on her new career path and in supporting Tom as he steps into this important, interim role.”