Office of the Dean

Dr. Deanne (“Deedee”) Pérez-Granados has a long-standing 25-year career as an educator and leader in higher education. Prior to joining Northern Arizona University as dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences (SBS), Dr. Pérez-Granados served as associate dean at California (Cal) State University, Bakersfield, and held faculty positions at Purdue University, Stanford University, and California State University (CSU), Monterey Bay. In her role as associate dean for the School of Social Sciences and Education at Cal State, Bakersfield, Dr. Pérez-Granados focused on initiatives to enhance student well-being and academic support systems during the post-COVID transition back to in-person teaching and student presence on campus, to improve university-wide academic data systems to examine and improve student outcomes, and to advance student success practices to more equitably and effectively serve all students, particularly the diverse populations of underrepresented and underserved students.

During her 14 years of service at CSU, Monterey Bay, Dr. Pérez-Granados served two terms as the Liberal Studies Department chair in the College of Education. She played impactful college and university faculty leadership roles contributing to academic program development and implementation, university assessment, accreditation, enrollment management, and student outreach and support. Most notably, she was the project director for two diversity and equity-oriented, cross-university and cross-institutional collaborative initiatives that were supported through successful multi-year foundation and Title V HSI national grants (Teacher Pathway programs and the MAESTROs project).

Dr. Pérez-Granados earned a master’s and doctoral degree in developmental psychology from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a bachelor of arts degree in Psychology from Stanford University. Her research agenda focuses on young children’s early language and literacy development in family and early education contexts with a particular focus on families from low-income and Mexican-descent communities, and the role of new technologies on toddlers’ and preschoolers’ language and literacy learning. Her applied scholarly work in children’s learning and development in home, school, and community contexts led to faculty positions in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at Purdue University (1996–2000), the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University (2000–2007), and the Liberal Studies Department in the College of Education at Cal State, Monterey Bay (2007–2021).

Dr. Pérez-Granados is honored to join NAU to serve as dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, and to make contributions to the intentional, focused priorities of NAU’s 2025 Elevating Excellence strategic plan for transformational social impact and economic mobility for students, and the pervasive commitment of the 2020 Diversity Strategic Plan for equity and inclusion. She looks forward to engaging with the SBS community of changemakers who are driven by their collective and personal responsibility to advance the college’s 2022 Strategic Plan for social justice and equity through transformational learning and excellence in scholarship. Additionally, Dr. Pérez-Granados looks forward to working collaboratively with the SBS faculty, staff, and leadership to sustain the many SBS successes and build new college initiatives and opportunities for continual improvement and growth.