UC Santa Barbara has appointed Professor Shelly Gable as dean of the Division of Mathematical, Life, and Physical Sciences, effective July 14, 2025.
She will also serve as the Susan and Bruce Worster Dean of Science, a title that reflects her leadership and the division’s longstanding commitment to academic excellence.
Gable has served as interim dean since September 2024, overseeing nine departments and four programs. The division supports more than 11,000 undergraduates, 900 graduate students and an annual budget averaging $171 million.
During her interim tenure, she led the appointment of 13 new faculty members, implemented a divisionwide budget reduction plan and advanced strategic fundraising efforts to support graduate research, faculty recruitment and infrastructure improvements.
A faculty member in UC Santa Barbara’s Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences since 2007, Gable served as chair from 2021 to 2024 and vice chair from 2012 to 2017. Her leadership emphasized inclusive hiring, faculty development and increased donor engagement.
Professor Gable is a nationally recognized scholar in social and personality psychology. Her research, which explores motivation, close relationships, and emotion regulation, has led to more than 100 scholarly publications and substantial funding from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Templeton Foundation.
Her numerous accolades include the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, and fellowships from the Association for Psychological Science, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology and the International Positive Psychology Association.
“I am deeply honored to continue serving the Division of Mathematical, Life, and Physical Sciences in this new role,” said Gable. “Our division is poised for continued growth, and I look forward to building on its legacy of innovation and discovery to advance science and our society.”
For more details about this announcement, please read the full message from Chancellor Henry T. Yang.