Dr. Linda Slakey is a graduate of Siena Heights College (B.S. in Chemistry), and the University of Michigan (Ph.D. in Biochemistry.) She was appointed to the faculty of the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1973. Her scientific work focused on lipid metabolism and vascular biology, and was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the American Heart Association, and the National Science Foundation. She was Head of the Department of Biochemistry from 1986 until 1991, and Dean of the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics (NSM) from 1993 until 2000. In September of 2000, she was appointed Dean of Commonwealth College, the honors college of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. As Dean of NSM and of Commonwealth College she was active in supporting teaching and learning initiatives throughout the University, with particular attention to engaging undergraduate students in research, to faculty development activities that promote the transition from lecturing to more engaged pedagogies, and to the support of research on STEM learning. She served at the National Science Foundation from 2006 until 2011, as Director of the Division of Undergraduate Education. At present she has a consulting practice focused on bringing about a shift in the culture of undergraduate teaching from one in which lecture as the dominant mode is an acceptable norm toward one characterized by personal and institutional expectations of more student-centered teaching practices.