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By Kelsey Kendall 

���ϲ����� announces Zaryab Iqbal, Ph.D., as the new dean of the Perry Honors College, effective July 1. Dr. Iqbal brings her experience in academic leadership, research and teaching to the ���ϲ����� community from Pennsylvania State University. 

“Dr. Iqbal is a distinguished scholar in political science and has exemplified visionary stewardship within her field and academic leadership,” said Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Brian Payne, Ph.D. “I look forward to seeing her expertise and dedication to academic excellence guide the Perry Honors College, supporting its mission to foster innovation and learning.” 

At Pennsylvania State University, Dr. Iqbal previously served as the associate dean of its honors college and as a faculty member in political science and Jewish studies. Her primary research and teaching areas of interest are in international conflict and security, and she has written two books, “War and the Health of Nations” and “State Failure in the Modern World." She also worked at the National Science Foundation in various roles to support program management, research and education.  

She received the Women in Engineering Initiative Award from the Women in Engineering Programs and Advocates Network in 2024 and the Distinguished Service Award from Teaching and Learning with Technology at Penn State in 2021.  

Iqbal said there is a “thirst for growth” at ���ϲ����� that she finds tremendously energizing. In particular, she is inspired by the University’s mission to support first-generation students while driving innovation and scholarship from the undergraduate to faculty levels.  

“���ϲ����� is exactly the kind of institution to which I would like to devote the next steps of my leadership and service career in terms of the potential for having a salient impact on higher education,” Dr. Iqbal said.  

As the dean of the Perry Honors College, Dr. Iqbal will oversee academics and programming for honors students, supervise staff in the honors college and bolster internal and external partnerships. Her goal is to pave the way for student success through interdisciplinary scholarship, as well as enhance the public value of an ���ϲ����� and Perry Honors College education. Dr. Iqbal said partnerships and collaborations across all ���ϲ����� academic units as well as alumni networks are key to enhancing honors students’ success. 

Dr. Iqbal acknowledges the honors college is unique in that it intersects with all academic colleges and departments. Those cross sections are where innovative solutions to societal problems can best be developed, and she considers a large part of her job to be “harnessing the strengths of every academic unit at the University.”  

Passionate about experiential learning, Dr. Iqbal said having strong experiential learning opportunities for all students, regardless of their majors, is a key step towards helping them develop lifelong learning skills and the ability to become problem-solvers. As dean, she hopes to accomplish this by ensuring the curriculum is enriched with faculty engagement to provide robust experiential learning elements through undergraduate research, internships and global experiences.  

 “We can only help students succeed if we learn about their world rather than pulling them into ours — and their world consists of a rapidly evolving future of work, artificial intelligence and new frontiers of knowledge,” Dr. Iqbal said.