Campus & community, Campus news

Berkeley Journalism names new interim dean as Wasserman steps down

By Public Affairs

Chancellor Carol Christ and Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost A. Paul Alivisatos sent the following message to the campus community on Monday:

After seven years at the helm of UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, Edward Wasserman has announced that he will be stepping down as dean and rejoining the faculty full time as a professor in media ethics. We are delighted to announce that professor Geeta Anand has agreed to serve as interim dean of Berkeley Journalism beginning July 1, 2020.

Geeta began teaching at Berkeley in 2018 and also serves as director of Berkeley Journalism’s Investigative Reporting Program. An esteemed veteran journalist specializing in narrative writing and investigative reporting, Geeta began her career covering local government in Vermont before going on to become the city hall bureau chief for the Boston Globe and later serving as a foreign correspondent in India for the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. She is the author of the non-fiction book, The Cure . She was a key member of the team of reporters that won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting for its coverage of the history and impact of corporate scandals in America and wrote the lead story in a series that was a finalist for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for revealing how hidden decision-makers make critical choices about who gets health care. Among her other honors, Geeta is also the recipient of the Gerald Loeb Award, the Victor Cohn Prize for Excellence in Medical Science Reporting and the Daniel Pearl Award for Outstanding International Investigative Reporting.

The search for a new dean for Berkeley Journalism will continue on as planned. The priority review date for applications, June 30, is approaching; we anticipate that a new dean will be announced during the fall 2020 semester. We are confident that Geeta’s journalistic excellence, leadership experience and dedication to the school will help us to ensure a smooth leadership transition.

In closing, we wish to again express our gratitude to current dean, Ed Wasserman, for his service to the Graduate School of Journalism and to the Berkeley campus. Ed has been a tireless advocate for scholarly excellence and Berkeley Journalism’s mission of public service through journalism, and has been instrumental in maintaining the school’s standing as a top institution for graduate training in journalism.