Dr. Debra Franko is the Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs and Professor of Applied Psychology at Northeastern University where she has served since 2016. She is responsible for faculty hiring, tenure and promotion, faculty development, and faculty diversity initiatives at the university, and is the NECHE Accreditation Liaison Officer. She oversees the development of programs for cultivating and diversifying the university’s pipeline of academic leaders through ADVANCE Office of Faculty Development. She is the Principal Investigator of an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation grant titled The Northeast Faculty Leadership Program: Success through Diversity which is designed to develop diverse leadership in the academy. She co-chaired the university-wide planning committee for the 2021 university’s academic plan, Experience Unleashed.
Prior she served as Associate Dean for Faculty in the Bouve College of Health Sciences for five years. Dr. Franko’s research is in eating disorders, depression, and suicide, with a focus on prevention and risk factors and she maintains a research appointment at Massachusetts General Hospital. Debra currently serves as Secretary for the Eating Disorders Research Society and was the recipient of the 2015 National Eating Disorders Association Award for Excellence in Prevention and Advocacy. She received her B.A. in Psychology from the University of Michigan and her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from McGill University.