Kat Weaver
Kat Weaver, Ph.D., serves as vice provost for faculty, research, and strategy. Reporting directly to the executive vice president and provost, Vice Provost Weaver is responsible for orienting new faculty; assisting students, faculty, and staff with research and professional development opportunities; and overseeing the rank and tenure process. She also leverages opportunities for online delivery of an LMU education.
As vice provost, Dr. Weaver provides leadership for LMU’s external grant and contract funding opportunities and processes, as well as leadership and guidance for tenure and promotion procedures, student-faculty research initiatives, and events and programs related to faculty development and recognition. Weaver’s grant and fundraising accomplishments include $5.1 million to fund her own research as well as institutional support for faculty innovation and curriculum reform since joining LMU.
Vice Provost Weaver and her team in the Office for Research and Sponsored Projects have elevated LMU’s success in garnering external funding by establishing an infrastructure for statistical analysis, grant writing, and proposal submission. Through the Office of Research and Creative Arts, Vice Provost Weaver has overseen increased access for student research including the creation of a new Research Learning Community in 2019 which provides students with crucial training for independent and faculty-mentored research in their disciplines. Under her leadership LMU received a $1.3 million McNair Scholars grant in 2022 to facilitate faculty-student research, ushering in our next five years of helping underrepresented students gain acceptances to top-tier Ph.D. programs.
Weaver’s leadership was instrumental in the expansion of programming in the Center for Faculty Development (formerly the Center for Teaching Excellence), including workshops, faculty learning communities, and LMU faculty fellows focused on antiracism, diversity, equity, and inclusion; universal design for learning; global-local opportunities; the Salon Series; and active learning pedagogy. Since 2018 Vice Provost Weaver has also facilitated the promotions of 97 tenure-line faculty through her care and support of each constituency involved in the annual year-long process.
Weaver earned her Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Her research on land snails and freshwater fish has been published in a variety of journal articles and technical reports. She also publishes and presents frequently about STEM education, with a focus on gender equity. Dr. Weaver came to LMU in 2018 from the University of La Verne, where she served on the faculty for 12 years, most recently as professor of biology and as associate dean of learning, innovation, and teaching. Weaver’s textbook, “An Introduction to Statistical Analysis in Research,” utilizes an electronic format that supports hybrid learning.