Simin Meydani became the director of Tufts' Jean Mayer United States Department of Agriculture Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (USDA HNRCA) last month after the position became vacant last year.
Meydani, who had served as the associate director of the USDA HNRCA for four years, became the center's fourth director on March 16.
She was tapped to become the new head after the previous director, Robert Russell, stepped down in July 2008. Russell remains on the faculty at the School of Medicine as a professor emeritus.
Research at the USDA HNRCA centers on the relationship between nutrition, health and aging. Tufts operates the center jointly with the USDA to work on public policy issues like dietary guidelines.
Meydani, who has been at Tufts since 1984, currently teaches at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy and the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Science.
For Meydani, the new position is an exciting development.
"I've been at Tufts and the center for 25 years. I was looking forward to taking more of a leadership role, and I was very happy" to take on the position, Meydani told the Daily. "I am honored to serve as director."
While Meydani officially stepped into the role last month, she had been performing many of the position's official duties since July 2008, after Russell stepped down. She said she was part of an interim management team that was charged with operating the USDA HNRCA while the search for a new director took place.
"We had to find someone who was both an outstanding scientist and someone with the administrative ability to manage the center," said Vice Provost Peggy Newell, who helped with the selection process.
Meydani hopes to expand the center's reach.
"The exciting part is working with my colleagues at USDA HNRCA to make sure that the center will continue to have the stellar reputation it already has, but also to think about new directions that USDA HNRCA might want to take," she said.
In particular, Meydani said she wants more students involved in its research, including at the undergraduate level. She said that the center has tremendous opportunities for students to get involved in research projects, whether in the School of Engineering or the School of Arts and Sciences.
"This is a wonderful research facility, and we have undergraduates working for us now, but we'd like to expand that more," she said.
Although her new position affords her less free time, Meydani has announced that she will remain on the faculty of Friedman and Sackler, though she will reduce the hours dedicated to her own personal research.
"I think the provost and I agree that it's important that the director have an active research program," Meydani said. "At Friedman, I was involved [in] teaching a course and advising graduate students, and I will continue to do that, although I may not have as many students as I used to."
University Provost and Senior Vice President Jamshed Bharucha appointed Meydani after a nationwide search that included a cross-section of deans and administrators from different Tufts schools and centers, according to Newell.
"The USDA HNRCA interacts quite a lot with the other science schools," she said. "We wanted people from the center represented."
