Professor Yu-Shan Lin, chair of the Department of Chemistry, will become an academic dean for the School of Arts and Sciences in January 2026 following the departure of Dean Sam Thomas, who will assume a new role at the University of Rochester.
Lin, a computational chemist, leads the YSL Group, a Tufts lab that studies biomolecules by combining advanced computing with chemical theory. As part of her new role, she will help manage the STEM, community health, child study and human development and education departments.
Lin told the Daily that she hopes to expand the collaborative and evidence-based approach she admires in the current Dean’s Office.
She also plans to apply her philosophy as chair of the Department of Chemistry to her new role as dean by distributing resources across departments and among faculty members to foster progress across the School of Arts and Sciences.
“My goal is partially aligned with each faculty member’s, in the sense that their success is my success, is the department’s success,” she said. “The department wants everybody to be successful. It’s not like I will give all department resources to a single faculty member, which I think [will be] similar when I become academic dean.”
Bárbara Brizuela, dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, said Lin’s leadership skills and data-driven decision-making made her a clear choice for the position, which she described as faculty-focused.
“She has broad support from the faculty and communicates really well with the faculty,” Brizuela said. “Given her scholarly expertise and what I’ve seen in her as a leader, she is very thoughtful in how she uses data.”
Lin’s leadership of STEM-related departments is part of a new pilot system implemented by Brizuela in September that assigns thematic clusters of departments to different academic deans.
“One of the priorities … is to create more synergies across the different departments, so that we’re really emphasizing our interdisciplinary qualities and trying to break down some of the silos that sometimes happen within departments,” Brizuela said.
“I think the idea [of] going from randomly sampled groups of departments into a very clear division is for us to actually get to know similar departments and their best practices and then see if we can find some common goals and then some resources that we can potentially share, or ideas that are translatable between departments,” Lin said.
Lin highlighted the importance of meeting the demand for student research opportunities, noting the unexpectedly large turnout at a Beckman Scholars research and fellowship event she helped organize to connect students with faculty-led research.
“A lot of the undergraduate students in the science majors want to join a research lab,” she said. “I think in chemistry, the acceptance rate is about 35%, so we actually turn away a lot of students. I want to see if there might be a way for us to provide more research opportunities.”
While taking pride in Tufts’ status as an R1 research institution, Lin emphasized the university’s liberal arts identity as equally important.
“Tufts is both a very strong liberal arts school and a Research 1 university at the same time,” she said. “I think we need to remember our liberal arts roots, in the sense that we still want to collaborate and be connected to other departments.”
As dean, Lin said she aims to promote an interdisciplinary dynamic between different fields of study and noted a key moment of collaboration between SMFA students and the chemistry department. Many works currently displayed in Pearson Chemistry Lab were created by students who interviewed chemistry faculty members to curate a collection highlighting the intersection of visual art and science.
“The department paid for the materials and supplies, and then the students got to have their artwork hung in a public building, so I think that that's a win-win situation,” she said.
Thomas, the departing dean and a member of the chemistry department faculty, expressed support for Lin as his successor and praised her work in the department. Lin said Thomas has left “big shoes for [her] to fill.”
“I am excited for the School of Arts and Sciences to have Prof. Lin in school leadership. I’ve been so impressed with her leadership as Chair of the Chemistry Department and have enjoyed working with her from the Dean’s office [over] the last few years,” he wrote in a statement to the Daily. “I am confident she will do a remarkable job in this role and bring fresh energy, ideas, and insights to help guide the school for the upcoming years.”
In a November email to students, Brizuela said the university will work with the Department of Chemistry to appoint a new chair.
