Following a comprehensive search, Nicola Foote, PhD, was selected to head Pitt’s University Honors College (UHC), effective July 1, 2021. Foote, a scholar of Latin American and Caribbean history, is also a full professor in Pitt’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs.
In her recent role as vice dean of the honors college at Arizona State University (ASU), she provided strategic leadership for the college across four campuses, overseeing 170 honors-only faculty and more than 2,000 affiliated faculty. Prior to ASU, she served as associate dean for university-wide programs and faculty engagement at Florida Gulf Coast University. While there, she was part of a presidentially appointed committee that created a diversity certificate for staff and faculty members which provided an opportunity for conversations about issues including ethnicity, gender, sexuality, disability and race. Foote has won awards for her teaching, mentoring and administrative leadership and has led study abroad programs to Ecuador, China, Trinidad and other spots around the globe.
Foote is a scholar with research interests in race and state formation in Ecuador, Caribbean migration to South America, histories of reproductive health care access in Florida and human-animal relations in the Galapagos Islands. She holds a PhD in history from University College London, a master’s degree from the Institute of Latin American Studies at the University of London and a bachelor’s degree in history of the Americas, also from University College London.
- PhD History: University College London, 2004
- MA Area Studies (Latin America): Institute of Latin American Studies, University of London, 2000. Degree awarded with distinction. Thesis received highest score ever awarded by the Institute.
- BA History of the Americas: University College London, 1999. First class honours.
- Undergraduate Year Abroad, University of the West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad, 1997-8
Education & Training
- Race and state formation in Ecuador
- Caribbean migration to South America
- Histories of reproductive health care access in Florida
- Human-animal relations in the Galapagos Islands
