Dr. Sheila Amin Gutiérrez de Piñeres was selected as vice president for Academic Affairs at Austin College this spring following an extensive national search. She begins her duties July 1, providing collaborative academic leadership for faculty, academic staff, and students.
“With her passion for the liberal arts, her considerable scholarship, and her award-winning teaching experience, Dr. Piñeres will bring continued strength to the College’s academic programs and a bright focus to the campus as a highly selective liberal arts college,” said Austin College President Marjorie Hass.
Piñeres is excited about the new position. “The opportunity to be part of the Austin College community and its mission is one I am both humbled and honored to embrace,” she said. “I am especially energized to join such an outstanding faculty committed to the development of engaged students so they may navigate the multiple and diverse opportunities in this ever-changing global environment.”
When selected, Piñeres was dean of undergraduate education and associate provost at the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD), where she also was professor of economics and political economy and holds the Mary McDermott Cook Distinguished Chair for Undergraduate Education and Research. In 2010, she received the prestigious UT System Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award, and in April, was one of 12 outstanding educators inducted into the inaugural class of The University of Texas System Academy of Distinguished Teachers.
Piñeres was a summa cum laude graduate of Texas A&M University, earning a degree in economics. She then earned a master’s degree in economics at University of Chicago and a Ph.D. at Duke University. Her major fields are development economics, international economics and finance, macroeconomic theory, and econometrics.
We are thrilled that Dr. Gutiérrez de Piñeres will be joining us. I admire her record of accomplishment as a thinker and a doer. What I like best about her, though, is her heartfelt dedication to student success. That is what makes her the perfect fit for Austin College. — Dr. Max Grober, member of the search committee