Teresa Woodruff, director of the Women’s Health Research Institute at the Feinberg School of Medicine, has been named the new dean of The Graduate School, the University announced Friday in a news release.

Woodruff will succeed Dwight McBride, who is leaving Northwestern to become Emory University’s provost, as dean starting Sept. 1, according to the release.

“It’s a real honor and pleasure to be able to lead The Graduate School,” Woodruff said in the release. “I understand the needs of diverse training environments, ranging from the humanities and social sciences to the performing and professional arts and to the basic and medical sciences.”

Woodruff previously held a variety of positions within the University, including director of the Feinberg women’s health institute, vice chair of research at Feinberg, director of the Center for Reproductive Science, director of the Oncofertility Consortium and professor at Weinberg, McCormick and Feinberg, according to the release.

In April, she was named a Guggenheim fellow for her work at Feinberg, which included finding a zinc spark that erupts when a human egg is fertilized, cloning the gonadal hormone inhibin for the first time in history and influencing a National Institutes of Health policy change towards greater gender inclusion in research studies.

As part of the new position, Woodruff will also serve as associate provost for graduate education under new provost Jonathan Holloway, who assumed the position earlier this summer.

“Given her impressive track records as a scientist, researcher and innovator, I know that she will make major contributions to graduate education at Northwestern,” Holloway said in the release.

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