Deborah Nelson is currently the Deputy Provost for Graduate Education at the University of Chicago. She received her PhD in English from the CUNY Graduate Center and has held several leadership roles focused on graduate education and gender studies at the University of Chicago, including directing the Center for Gender Studies. Her research examines 20th century literature and privacy in the Cold War era. She has authored several publications and has received honors such as an American Educational Studies Association Choice Award.

1. DEBORAH L. NELSON
829 West Junior Terrace
Chicago, IL 60613
773-834-2962 (o)
773-459-1568 (h)
dnelson@uchicago.edu
EDUCATION
CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK GRADUATE CENTER
Ph.D., English; Certificate in Women’s Studies, 1996
Doctoral Faculty/Alumni Prize for Outstanding Dissertation in English
Carolyn G. Heilbrun Prize for Oustanding Dissertation in Women’s Studies
First Prize, Student Essay Contest, CUNY Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies
Distinguished Scholar Dissertation Fellowship, Graduate Center
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
M.A. English, 1990
YALE UNIVERSITY
B.A. English, cum laude, Distinction in the English Major,1995
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
Deputy Provost for Graduate Education 2011-present
Graduate Education includes six professional schools and four academic divisions;
3,500 PhDs candidates; @9,500 total graduate students
Worked with PhD programs on time to degree, attrition and completion based on
newly collected data for all departments
Work with deans on a host of initiatives that pertain to graduate students in their
divisions/professional schools and those that reach across all ten units including
professionalization, stipends and health insurance, etc.
Lead on University response to and engagement with efforts to unionize graduate
students
Initiated expansion of the Center for Teaching and Learning into the Center for
Teaching excellence including expanding its budget fourfold by soliciting increased
support from all graduate divisions and the college; conducting a national search for
a new director
Brought Graduate Student Affairs under my supervision, reoriented their mission
around academic placement and placement, hired new personnel to work with 10
dedicated masters programs; expanded fellowship support, which this year brought
8.5 million dollars to the graduate divisions through dissertation support

2. 2
Began an initiative with Alumni Relations and Development that has successfully
engaged alumni in career support for current students and networking
opportunities for alumni
Expanded the graduate area of Career Advancement; more than tripled student
involvement from five years ago. Substantially increased non-academic placement
in the biological and physical science divisions, social sciences and humanities
including MA programs.
Initiated a new program for Postdocs, which is to include career placement, teaching
training, community building, etc.
Revamped parent policy and expanded efforts through the Family Resource Center
to provide services to student parents
Currently in the process of evaluating the repurposing of campus space for a
graduate and postdoc child care facility
Director, Center for Gender Studies 2006-2009
Associate Director, Center for Gender Studies 2003-2005
Collaborated on the hiring of six new faculty working in gender students with five
partner departments
Oversaw programming and fellowships for undergraduates and graduate
Developed and ran faculty programming for a university wide constituency
Created and oversaw five year project on the history of women at the University
that culminated in an exhibit at Special Collections in the Library that was
recommended by the ALA. Student led and student gathered almost 100 oral
histories; catalogue and exhibit funded primarily by the college
Worked to get alumni, students, and faculty involvement
Served as member of Board of Directors from 2003-2005 and 2009-2010
Board, Franke Humanities Center 2007-2010
Oversees funding for Franke supported conferences; oversees selection of six faculty
fellows and three graduate dissertation fellows
Advisory Committee, Council of the Faculty Senate 2007-2008
Meets bi-weekly to advise and consult with President and Provost on matters of
University-wide planning and oversight including building, fundraising, administration
initiatives, and faculty governance
Member, University Senate 2004-2009
Sixty member elected council representing 1,600 faculty
Associate Chair and Director of Graduate Studies, 2004-2005
Department of English
Oversee graduate program of, at the time, 180 students; monitor progress to degree,
implementation of program changes. Run programming for student preparation of
oral exams, dissertation proposals, and dissertations. Work with chair on
promotions and tenure.

3. 3
Associate Professor, Department of English 2003-present
Assistant Professor, Department of English 1996-2003
Primary areas of research and publication include late 20th century blah blah
Department and University –wide service has included:
o Chair, Placement Committee: 10 years
o Chair, Graduate Admissions
o Committee to appoint Dean of Humanities: 2007
o Committee to appoint English Department Chair: 2004-2005, 2007-2008
o Chair, various senior-level search faculty search committees, including
Latino/a Literature and Culture, 20th Century Anglophone Literatures: 2002-
2010 resulting in seven junior appointments
o Chair, Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship Search Committee: 2002-2003, 2009
o University Council on Teaching: 2003-2005
o Steering Committee, Lesbian/Gay Studies Project: 2001-2002
Professional Activities: Founding Board Member and Steering Committee, POST45;
online journal , conference series, and book series published by Stanford University
Press
PUBLICATIONS
Tough Broads: Suffering in Style, forthcoming
Pursuing Privacy in Cold War America, Columbia University Press, 2002
“Confessional Poetry,” Cambridge Companion to 20th-Century American Poetry, ed.
Jennifer Ashton, February, 2013.
“Introduction: Twentieth-Century Poetry: Expanding Archives and
Methods,”
PMLA, Vol. 127, No. 2, March 2012.
“The Virtues of Heartlessness: Mary McCarthy, Hannah Arendt, and the
Anaesthetics of Empathy,” American Literary History, Winter 2006.
“Sylvia Plath and the Cold War” in the Cambridge Companion to Sylvia Plath,
editedby Jo Gill, Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Guest Editor, Special Issue of WSQ “Gender and Culture in the 1950s,” Dec.
2005.
“Suffering and Thinking: The Scandal of Tone in Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann
in
Jerusalem” in Compassion, edited by Lauren Berlant for the English Institute,
Routledge Press, 2004.

4. 4
Pursuing Privacy in Cold War America, Columbia University Press, Jan. 2002.
“Beyond Privacy: Confessions Between a Woman and Her Doctor”
Feminist Studies, Summer 1999.
“Penetrating Privacy: Confessional Poetry and the Surveillance Society” in
Home/Making: The Poetics and Politics of Home edited by Catherine
Wiley and Fiona Barnes, Garland Press, 1996.
Then include all your publications. Leave out classes you teach, radio appearances, include
reviews in publications.
AWARDS AND HONORS
MELLON FOUNDATION
Principal Investigator,Sawyer Seminar “@1948” 2011-2012
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO, OFFICE OF THE PROVOST
Fellow, Academic Leadership Program 2009-2010
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO – WHAT DEPT?
Society of Fellows (what is this? Should it be an award?) 2006-2009
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO, FRANKE INSTITUTE FOR THE HUMANITIES
Academic Fellow? 2005-2006
MELLON FOUNDATION
Postdoctoral Fellowship, Wesleyan University Center 2000-2001
for the Humanities
AMERICAN EDUCATIONAL STUDIES ASSOCIATION
Choice Award for Outstanding Academic Publication 2002
Dissertation Advising: 33 completed Phds; 7 current students
A list of invited talks, conferences, courses taught, and references available.