Kimberly Skarupski, PhD, MPH, joined UTMB in August 2024 as Associate Vice Provost, Leadership Development, in the Office of Faculty Affairs. She is a tenured Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Geriatrics in the John Sealy School of Medicine and in the Department of Epidemiology in the School of Public and Population Health.
Dr. Skarupski joined us from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD, where she was the Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Development in the School of Medicine. She is the only sociologist to be promoted to Professor in the School of Medicine at Hopkins (Department of Medicine – Division of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology); she was also a Professor of Epidemiology at the Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Dr. Skarupski plays a pivotal role in the Office of Faculty Affairs, creating and sustaining an inclusive and excellent faculty community. Her work includes developing, implementing, evaluating, and disseminating world-class leadership programs that engage, nurture, and inspire faculty members to both envision and exceed their professional growth and career aspirations.
The goal throughout Dr. Skarupski’s nearly two-decade faculty development career has been “to build community.” She has accomplished this via her innovative programs, including WAGs (Writing Accountability Groups); grant review investigator groups; specific aims speed sessions; later-career and “Next Chapter” faculty transitions programs; 1:1, group, and peer coaching (Dr. Skarupski is a certified professional coach through the College of Executive Coaching); and building, facilitating, teaching, and evaluating a wide-range of faculty development and leadership programs. Dr. Skarupski is also the creator (2019) and host of the weekly Faculty Factory podcast, an international forum for academic affairs and faculty development conversations as well as a repository of faculty development episode snippets, and three free faculty development and leadership e-books.
As a social gerontologist and program evaluator, the major theme running throughout Dr. Skarupski’s 25-plus-year research career has been the quality of life in older adults, using data from large-scale epidemiologic studies to examine disparities in quality of life in this population, as well as the contribution of various social and psychological determinants of quality of life in older age. Most recently, she has merged her gerontologic and faculty development interests, exploring late-career faculty members’ career needs, retirement expectations and experiences, and caregiving roles.
Dr. Skarupski received her bachelor’s degree from Gannon University in her hometown of Erie, PA. She earned her Master of Arts from the State University of New York (Buffalo), her doctorate from Case Western Reserve University (Cleveland), completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Michigan and the Veterans Administration Health Services Research and Development field program (Ann Arbor), and her Master of Public Health from the University of Pittsburgh. She lives on Galveston island with her dogs, Sunny (Goldendoodle) and Izzy (Bichon Frise mix) and can be found at her favorite places: McGuire-Dent Recreation Center (pickle-baller); Lasker Pool; ocean-side (adjacent to, not atop); museums; parks and cemeteries; Rosenberg Library; nature trails; and quaint shops.