University of the Pacific names dean of School of Health Sciences founded in Sacramento
University of the Pacific announced today that veteran college administrator Nicoleta Bugnariu will run the new School of Health Sciences that the Stockton-based university launched last year in Sacramento.
Bugnariu will be dean of the school when she joins Pacific on June 1. She has been working as the vice provost of community engagement and service at the University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth, Texas. Prior to that role, she was interim dean of the School of Health Professions at the UNT Health Science Center from 2016 to 2018.
“I am delighted to join the Pacific family and have the opportunity to lead and collaborate with such talented, student-focused faculty, staff and administrators,” Bugnariu said. “We have ahead of us a great opportunity and responsibility to translate the university and school vision into reality, provide a purpose-driven, mission-centric transformational educational experience to our students, prepare them to positively shape the future of health professions, and to lead and serve their communities.”
She has a bachelor’s degree in physical therapy and a doctorate in neuroscience, both from the University of Ottawa. She also has honed her business leadership skills, completing the Hedwig van Ameringen Executive Leaders in Academic Medicine program at Drexel University and an executive MBA at Texas Christian University.
The School of Health Sciences will share the Oak Park campus where Pacific’s McGeorge School of Law is at. The school offers programs in athletic training, audiology, physical therapy, physician assistant studies and speech-language pathology, but it will be adding some degree programs soon. It will offer master’s degrees in clinical nutrition, nursing and social work beginning this fall and a doctorate in occupational therapy starting in spring 2021.
UOP’s decades-old pharmacy school also named a new leader, Rae Matsumoto, who has served as dean of the Touro University California College of Pharmacy in Vallejo since 2014.
A scientist and an educator, Matsumoto earned a doctoral degree in psychology from Brown University and did postdoctoral studies in both biochemistry and physiology at Brown and Northwestern University. She will join Pacific on July 1 as dean of the Thomas J. Long School of Pharmacy.
This story was originally published January 16, 2020 at 2:24 PM.
