Professor Emerita and Professor of the Graduate School Deborah Nolan has been awarded the Berkeley Faculty Service Award by the UC Berkeley Faculty Senate. 

The Berkeley Faculty Service Award (BFSA) honors a member of the Berkeley Division of the Academic Senate for their outstanding and dedicated service to the campus, and whose activities as a faculty member have significantly enhanced the quality of the campus as an educational institution and community of scholars. This award recognizes Senate service, which is essential to the ideal of shared governance, and contributions that have had a lasting and significant impact on the excellence of the Berkeley campus. Nolan also serves as Associate Dean, Students for the College of Computing, Data Science, and Society.

"It is hard to imagine a more deserving colleague than Deb Nolan," said CDSS Dean Jennifer Chayes. "We [are] awed at Deb Nolan's dedicated and impactful service to our campus and university and are grateful for all she has done."




Nolan joined the UC Berkeley faculty in 1986. Her career exemplifies dedicated and outstanding service to the university, profession, and community, particularly emphasizing undergraduate education and increasing access to higher education for underrepresented populations. Nolan has served in myriad roles on both faculty committees and in administrative positions, both on campus and system-wide:

• Academic Senate Committee on Teaching member (1999-2002) and Chair (2002-2003)
• Berkeley Division of the Academic Senate Divisional Council member (1999-2000)
• Campus Academic Senate Committee on Research member (2006-2008)
• UC system-wide Affirmative Action and Diversity Committee (2000–2001, Vice Chair 2001–2002, Chair 2002–2003)
• Chancellor's Coordinating Committee on the Status of Women (1999–2002)
• Chancellor's Task Force on Diversity (1999–2000)
• UC Berkeley Committee on the Status of Women and Ethnic Minorities (1997–1999, Chair 1999–2001)
• L&S Executive Committee (1997–1998), Chair (1998–2000)
• Chair of the Department of Statistics (2003–2006, 2017–2019)
• Associate Dean (2006–2008) and Acting Dean (2009) of the L&S Division of Mathematical and Physical Sciences

"Many congratulations to Deb," said Statistics Chair Haiyan Huang. "She has been a pillar of our community for nearly 40 years, and this recognition is richly deserved." 

Professor Nolan's service during the past decade has focused on data science. She was instrumental in developing the Data Science Major and Minor, including the core upper-division course Data 100 (Principles and Techniques of Data Science) taken by over one thousand students each semester. Despite her intention to retire in July 2020, she has served as Associate Dean or Special Advisor to the Dean in CDSS continuously since January 2020, playing a critical role in the CDSS College pre-proposal and proposal and the transfer of the Computer Science, Data Science, and Statistics majors from L&S to CDSS. It is not clear CDSS could have become a college or the Data Science Major and its related programs been this successful without Professor Nolan's extraordinary dedication, vision, and leadership.