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The following professors were appointed as deans:

• Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Professor Jari Ojala
• Faculty of Information Technology, Professor Pasi Tyrväinen
• Jyväskylä University School of Business and Economics, Professor Hanna-Leena Pesonen
• Faculty of Education and Psychology, Professor Anna-Maija Poikkeus
• Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences, Professor Sarianna Sipilä
• Faculty of Mathematics and Science, Professor Mikko Mönkkönen

“At JYU, deans are in a key position in creating opportunities through leadership for successful and high-quality operations in our community,” says Rector Keijo Hämäläinen. “Deans also have an important role in defining the future direction of the whole university through their work in management teams. They are links between the faculties and the whole university and are also visible to society.”

“It is great that we have strong leadership competence and motivation for demanding dean’s duties inside our university, although the positions were openly applicable also for external applicants. From the perspective of leadership at JYU, the appointments represent a good balance between continuity and renewal. I am also very happy about the implementation of equality, which, unfortunately, is not yet self-evident in academic leadership duties.”

Presentations of deans:

Professor of comparative business history Jari Ojala starts as the dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. He completed his doctoral degree at the Ģ��ֱ�� in 1999 and his professorship started in 2009. He served as the faculty’s vice dean responsible for research and innovations in the previous term of office and as the head of the Department of History and Ethnology from 2008 to 2017. He is one of the leaders of the Crises profiling area at the Ģ��ֱ��.

Jari Ojala has led several research projects related to economic, business and maritime history. He has received national and international recognition for his research (including the Eino Jutikkala History Prize). He has served on numerous development groups at the Ģ��ֱ�� and as an external member of the Faculty of Mathematics and Sciences faculty council. Ojala is the chairman of the advisory board of the National Archives and a member of the board of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters.

Professor Pasi Tyrväinen continues as the dean of the Faculty of Information Technology. Professor Tyrväinen’s research area is business interfaces and networks in the development of smart cities and software business.

In addition to his professorship of digital media, he has worked various times as a vice dean and a head of department at the Faculty of Information Technology, and as the director of the multidisciplinary independent institute Agora Center until the end of 2016.

Professor of corporate environmental management Hanna-Leena Pesonen continues as the dean of the Jyväskylä University School of Business and Economics. She completed her doctoral degree at the Ģ��ֱ�� in 1999 and her professorship started in 2001. At the Ģ��ֱ��, she worked as a vice dean of the School of Business and Economics (JSBE) in 2010–13, the dean of JSBE in 2014–17, the chair of the board of the Institute for Environmental Research 2006–2014, and the chair of the board of the Language Centre 2014–2017.

In her research and teaching duties, Pesonen has visited and collaborated with various European universities. She has been in a broad range of societal positions of trust, for example, as the chair of Responsibility Committee of the Central Chamber of Commerce and as a board member of LähiTapiola Keski-Suomi. Among other acknowledgements, she was invited as a member of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce in 2013, and she received the Schildt award of the Finnish Cultural Foundation in 2012.

Professor of early childhood and primary education Anna-Maija Poikkeus continues as the dean of the Faculty of Education and Psychology. She completed her doctoral degree at the University of Minnesota in 1993. From 2004, she has worked as a professor at the Department of Teacher Education focusing on children’s development and learning. Before that, she worked at the Department of Psychology in teaching and research duties and as a senior researcher in two Centres of Excellence (Human Development and Its Risk Factors, Learning and Motivation).

Professor Poikkeus has served as a vice dean responsible for research at the faculty and as a research director and pedagogic director at the Department of Teacher Education. She has worked in several research projects, scientific communities and expert duties and in the management team of the MultiLeTe profiling project. Her research areas include early childhood learning and development, including longitudinal research of related risks, and classroom interaction and social relationships.

Professor Sarianna Sipilä starts as the dean of the Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences. She has studied, for example, the factors explaining mobility and functional capacity in middle-aged and older people, and the effects of physical activity on the physical capacity of healthy older people and older people in poorer health.

Sipilä graduated from the Ģ��ֱ�� with a PhD in philosophy in 1996. From 2007 to 2012, she was research director of the Gerontology Research Centre. In 2013, she was appointed Professor of Exercise Gerontology. Sipilä has held a number of scientific positions of trust, for example in the institutions and working groups of the Academy of Finland. She has been the vice dean for research and innovation at the Faculty of sport and health sciences since 2018.

Professor in applied ecology Mikko Mönkkönen continues as the dean of the Faculty of Mathematics and Science. Professor Mönkkönen worked as the head of the Department of Biological and Environmental Science from 2014–2017. He completed his doctoral degree in ecology in 1991 at the University of Oulu. He was appointed a professor at the Ģ��ֱ�� in 2005. Professor Mönkkönen is the leader of the Boreal Ecosystems Research Group, which aims to find means to reconcile increasing demands of natural resources with the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Professor Mönkkönen is part of an extensive international researcher network and he has worked for the Canadian Wildlife Service (Nepean, Canada) and the Center for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology CEFE (CNRS, Montpellier, France). He has a variety of scientific expert duties, including membership of the Finnish Expert Panel on Sustainable Development.

Further information:

Rector Keijo Hämäläinen, tel. 040 6800 215, keijo.hamalainen@jyu.fi