Kelly Tappenden
Kelly A. Tappenden has been appointed dean of the College of Health at the University of Utah, effective July 1. Tappenden comes to the UofU from the University of Illinois Chicago, where she currently serves as professor and head of the Department of Kinesiology and Nutrition. She also is the interim head of the Department of Occupational Therapy. Before joining the University of Illinois Chicago, she served as a provost fellow and endowed professor in the Division of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Tappenden is a past president of the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition and was the organization’s inaugural fellow in 2012. She previously served as a board member for the American Gastroenterological Association and the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. Tappanden’s research focuses on intestinal failure, mechanisms of intestinal adaptation, and patient malnutrition. Tappenden succeeds R. Scott Ward, who has served as interim dean since July 2022, when he stepped in for David H. Perrin, who retired in June 2022 after eight years as the college’s dean.
