Steven J. Fluharty

Steven J. Fluharty was appointed Dean of the School of Arts & Sciences and Thomas S. Gates, Jr. Professor in July 2013. A member of the Penn faculty since 1986, he holds primary appointments in the Department of Psychology in the School of Arts & Sciences and in Pharmacology in the School of Veterinary Medicine’s Department of Animal Biology. He also has secondary appointments in Neuroscience and Pharmacology in the Perelman School of Medicine.

Prior to his appointment as Penn Arts & Sciences Dean, Fluharty served as Penn’s Senior Vice Provost for Research. In this capacity he shaped policy and advanced administrative initiatives for the University’s billion-dollar research enterprise, including leading strategic planning for research and administering the development of new research facilities. He also helped to oversee campus-wide research planning efforts, linkages between the University and industry, and the transfer of technologies from University laboratories to the public sector.

Fluharty served as director of the School’s undergraduate Biological Basis of Behavior program from 1994 to 2005. He has a strong personal record of funded research and also served for ten years as the director of a University-wide program project grant and institutional training grant in behavioral neuroscience from the National Institutes of Health. In addition, he was associate director of the Institute of Neurological Sciences from 1995 to 2003. He is the recipient of numerous honors and awards for his investigative discoveries, including the Louis Flexner Prize in Neuroscience, the Beecham Award for Research Excellence, and designation as an Astra Merck Scholar by the American Heart Association. He has received multiple teaching awards at Penn.

Fluharty earned his three degrees from Penn as a University Scholar; his B.A. in psychology in 1979, graduating summa cum laude; his M.A. in psychobiology in 1979; and his Ph.D. in psychobiology in 1981.