Rutgers University

Jason Geary is Dean of the Mason Gross School of the Arts and Distinguished Professor of Music at Rutgers University. For twelve years beginning in 2004, he taught musicology at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance, where he also held the role of Associate Dean for Graduate Studies, Equity, and Inclusion. Prior to arriving at Rutgers, he served for four years as Director of the School of Music at the University of Maryland and was Special Advisor for the Arts within the College of Arts & Humanities. While at Maryland, Geary enhanced entrepreneurship training for students, forged ties between the arts and sciences, increased diversity across the school, and fostered more inclusive programming, all while significantly growing the school’s fund balance and more than tripling its annual fundraising totals. He also launched several community engagement initiatives, including a student live-in residency at a senior retirement community that garnered national attention, and was involved in the creation of an arts leadership minor for undergraduate students. At Michigan, Geary spearheaded multiple efforts to improve the quality of graduate programs and led a comprehensive strategic planning process around enhancing diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Rebecca Cypess is Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at Mason Gross and an Associate Professor in the Music Department. She is committed to fostering interdisciplinary research, teaching, and artistic practice; enhancing the school’s climate and its commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion; and promoting the work of Mason Gross’s faculty, students, and staff. From 2018 to 2020, Cypess served as Associate Director of the Music Department, where she worked to enrich the department’s academic and artistic life while advancing initiatives that increased operational clarity and amplified the voices of students. In her teaching and research, Cypess specializes in the history, interpretation, and performance practices of music in 17th- and 18th-century Europe and America, as well as music in Jewish culture, music in the history of science, and women in music. Prior to her appointment at Rutgers in 2012, Cypess served on the Music History faculty at the New England Conservatory of Music.

Rebecca Cypess is the author of Curious and Modern Inventions: Instrumental Music as Discovery in Galileo’s Italy (University of Chicago Press, 2016); Women and Musical Salons in the Enlightenment (forthcoming from the University of Chicago Press in 2022); and over two dozen peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. She is co-editor of the volumes Sara Levy’s World: Gender, Judaism, and the Bach Tradition in Enlightenment Berlin (University of Rochester Press, 2018) and Music and Jewish Culture in Early Modern Italy: New Perspectives (forthcoming from Indiana University Press in 2022). A performer on historical keyboard instruments, Cypess directs the Raritan Players, which is devoted to the exploration of compositions and performance practices associated with women.

Henry S. Turner, Vice President for Academic Initiatives, brings more than two decades of commitment to humanities scholarship that weaves together the enduring questions of literature, art, history, and philosophy with the conceptual richness of science, technology, and mathematics.

A Professor of English and former Director of the Center for Cultural Analysis at Rutgers–New Brunswick, Dr. Turner specializes in Renaissance literature and intellectual history. He is the author or editor of five books, including The English Renaissance Stage: Geometry, Poetics, and the Practical Spatial Arts, 1580–1630 (Oxford, 2006), awarded Honorable Mention for the Best Book of the Year by the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts; Shakespeare’s Double Helix (Bloomsbury); and, most recently, of The Corporate Commonwealth: Pluralism and Political Fictions in England, 1516–1649 (University of Chicago Press), recipient of the Elizabeth Dietz Prize for the Best Book in English Renaissance Studies and Honorable Mention for the Bernard Hewitt Award for Outstanding Research in Theater History from the American Society for Theatre Research.

Executive Dean Lawson provides leadership and oversight for the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences and the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station. She works closely with university leaders to develop and implement strategic initiatives that reflect and advance the university’s research, education, and outreach missions. Lawson has an undergraduate degree in Environmental Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and an Masters of Landscape Architecture and Ph.D. in Environmental Planning from the University of California, Berkeley. Her scholarship focuses on urban agriculture, community open space, and community-based participation in planning and design. She is author of City Bountiful: A Century of Community Gardening in America and co-author of Greening Cities, Growing Communities: Urban Community Gardens in Seattle (2009). She has numerous publications in academic journals, edited books, and popular media.