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Faculty of Arts and Science Associate Dean (Research) Nicholas Mosey has taken a new position within the Faculty Associate Dean (Global Engagement), starting on July 1. The new position will oversee and provide strategic leadership for global engagement in FAS.

“It is a really exciting and important time in the university right now when it comes to global engagement,” says Dean Barbara Crow, FAS. “The Report on the Principal’s Conversation and the Principal’s Working Group plans reflected the importance of Queen’s engaging with the broader global community and indeed the list of the Principal’s strategic goals are prefaced by a ‘commitment to making a global impact.’”

The Associate Dean (Global Engagement) will work with all the Associate Deans in FAS and with other institutional partners to develop and execute a comprehensive, coherent global engagement strategy that will enhance the global impact of the units in FAS and the institution.

“The ability to promote meaningful impact on a global scale through a challenging multi-faceted role is what appeals to me about this position.”

Dr. Mosey joined the Department of Chemistry at Queen’s as an Assistant Professor in 2008, was tenured in 2014, and promoted to Full Professor in 2019. He served as his Department’s Graduate Coordinator and first-year Chemistry Coordinator and served twice as Associate Chair of the Faculty’s Graduate Council, among other service roles. Based on his service in these areas, in 2017, the Dean of FAS asked Dr. Mosey to join the Faculty’s leadership team as Acting Associate Dean (Graduate Studies and Research, Science) to cover a sabbatical opening.

Shortly after starting that position, the portfolios in the Faculty were restructured, so that Dr. Mosey no longer had responsibilities for any of the graduate studies portfolio, but instead gained the responsibility of supporting research across the full range of fields that are operative in FAS.

“I embraced this opportunity to learn more about the breadth of research occurring across FAS and to develop ways to support these research activities. When my term as Acting Associate Dean (Research) ended, the Dean asked me to stay in the role in an official, longer-term capacity. I enthusiastically agreed to stay, and I’ve been here since.”

When reflecting on his achievements as he prepares to move into his new role, Dr. Mosey talks about the researchers within the Faculty, leadership and staff in the Faculty Office, and groups outside FAS that support research.

“I am most proud of the efforts I have made to meet with researchers across FAS to understand their work, learn what supports they need to achieve their research visions, and to identify connections between research activities within the Faculty,” says Dr. Mosey. “When engaging with the broader university research community, I’m proud of the way that I’ve been able to advocate for FAS researchers while still working in manner that does not lose sight of what’s most important for the university as a whole.”

“The accomplishment I’m most proud of at the level of the Faculty Office involves providing structure to the Associate Dean (Research) position. This structure focuses on providing programs and plans that best support our researchers and includes formalizing the institutional support associated with different types of grants, introducing programs to ensure research funding continuity and initiate interdisciplinary and globally-engaged research, review services for funding and award applications, and deliberate approaches to the development of external partnerships.”

Dr. Mosey also reflects on the past two years and the challenges of the pandemic.

“The Provincial designation of research as an essential service from the start of the pandemic meant that the return to campus efforts at the institution were developed in the context of accessing on-campus spaces for research. As such, I was heavily involved in establishing, implementing, and overseeing return to campus protocols for research by working with the VPR and other ADRs to develop institutional rules for accessing campus, implementing Faculty-level procedures that were consistent with those rules, and then working with researchers to ensure that necessary access could be approved.”

Dr. Mosey is also quick to note he didn’t do this challenging work during the pandemic alone and says he thanks FAS Project Manager Meghan Hatch for playing an instrumental role in helping everything run smoothly, and at the unit levels Heads, Department Managers, faculty, students and staff have gone to great lengths to ensure that research operations could occur in a safe manner that is consistent with the institutional policies.

As for his new role, Dr. Mosey is focused on leadership and connections between diverse groups. “I hope to draw on the collaborative approach to leadership I’ve taken in the Associate Dean (Research) portfolio to effectively engage with a range of groups across campus, my experience developing external partnerships, and, importantly, my genuine curiosity regarding how different parts of the institution operate and how they fit into the broader picture of global engagement.”

For more information about the AD (Research) position, visit the FAS website.